Taking a pregnancy test can be quite stressful for women, especially if one day the test is positive and then the next day it is negative. There could be several reasons why this occurs, but the best way to determine if you are pregnant in this case is through a blood test and exam by your OB/GYN.

Positive Equals Pregnant

The at home pregnancy tests are designed to detect HCG, known as the pregnancy hormone. So, a pregnancy test will not be positive unless HCG is detected in the body. This could result either from pregnancy or from the woman taking some form of medicine with HCG in it. Most of the time a positive pregnancy tests means the woman is pregnant. But, what happens if the test is negative the next day? Are you still pregnant? Was the first test wrong? There could be any number of answers, but the most likely one is that you were pregnant when you took the first test that was positive. Or, you could have been pregnant a few days prior to taking the test but the level of HCG was still high in your body. By the time you took the second pregnancy test the HCG levels had fallen enough that the test was negative, meaning you had a miscarriage.

This seems devastating to many women who are desperately trying to become pregnant. The one positive test followed by a negative one seems too much to bear. However, this is actually very normal. It is estimated that as many as 25% of pregnancies result in miscarriage. However, the miscarriage occurs so early that the woman never realizes what happened. The woman’s period may be a bit heavier or later that particular month, but most women never have a clue a miscarriage occurred and because of this never feel the loss.

The problem for women who are doing everything possible to become pregnant is that they have the resources to test at home with ultra sensitive pregnancy tests. This allows them to find out they are pregnant very quickly after conception occurs. However, the problem here is that many pregnancies don’t survive very long, but they do exist long enough to increase a woman’s HCG level and result in a positive pregnancy test. This allows women to know about every miscarriage and feel every loss, which is not something most women deal with.

The best advice for women who are trying to become pregnant is to simply wait until they miss their period to take a home pregnancy test. This may seem like too long to wait when there are really sensitive tests that may be taken sooner. However, waiting a little longer will give you more accurate results. If you take the test and it is negative you will know to try again and if it is positive more than likely it will stay that way. Of course, the entire first trimester may be iffy when it comes to whether the pregnancy will make it or not, but the less you stress about it the better off you will be.