Day 15 Dpo Negative Pregnancy Test

[Beatrix Gerke]

Anegative pregnancy test means the test didn't detect the pregnancy hormone hCG in your urine. But that doesn't always mean you're not pregnant. A false negative pregnancy test can happen because you conceived later than you think, you didn't take the test correctly, your urine was diluted, or even because you're pregnant with multiples. If you have a late or missed period and a negative pregnancy test, talk to your healthcare provider, who can do a blood test to determine whether you're pregnant.

Yes, it's possible to be pregnant and have a negative pregnancy test result. In fact, some researchers estimate this happens with up to 5 percent of home pregnancy tests. It's called a "false negative" pregnancy test result.

Sometimes. Occasionally, extremely high levels of hCG prevent home pregnancy tests from being able to properly read the result, and the read ends up being negative. This is known as the "hook effect." This can happen if you're further along in your pregnancy or if you're carrying twins or triplets.

You could have had a false-positive pregnancy test, meaning your test result says you're pregnant when you're actually not. Although rare, this can happen if you experienced a pregnancy loss, or if you took a pregnancy test too soon after taking a fertility drug that contains hCG.

It's also possible that you are pregnant, and your second test was a false negative. If your at-home pregnancy test is positive, or you've gotten mixed results, make an appointment with your healthcare provider. They can do a blood test or ultrasound to confirm whether or not you're pregnant.

If you continue to get a negative result on home pregnancy tests for more than a week after missing your period, it's very unlikely that you're pregnant. However, you can always check with your doctor to be sure.

If you miss more than three periods in a row and pregnancy tests are all negative, see your doctor for a thorough evaluation. Women can stop having regular periods for many reasons, including diabetes, eating disorders, excessive exercise, stress, obesity, very low body fat, or some medications. Here are other common reasons:

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Bhandari T. 2019. Flaw in many home pregnancy tests can return false negative results. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. -in-many-home-pregnancy-tests-can-return-false-negative-results/Opens a new window [Accessed November 2022]

Maggie Getz is a freelance writer and editor specializing in health, wellness, and motherhood. She lives in Colorado with her husband and young son and daughter. She enjoys hiking, yoga, baking (and eating said baked goods), as well as connecting with other moms.

Taking a home pregnancy test can be exciting, but it also may be stressful. That's especially true if you're not sure whether you should trust the results. Know when and how to take a home pregnancy test. And learn some of the possible drawbacks of home testing.

The timing of ovulation makes a difference in the accuracy of a home pregnancy test. And ovulation can change from month to month. A fertilized egg also can implant in the uterus at different times. That can affect the timing of when HCG starts to be made and when it can be found with a home pregnancy test. Irregular menstrual cycles also can affect pregnancy test results, as they make it hard to figure out when a period should start.

For most home pregnancy tests, you put the end of the test in your urine stream, dip the test in a container of urine or put several drops of urine onto the test. A few minutes later, the result appears. It's often a plus or a minus sign, the words "yes" or "no," one line or two lines, or the words "pregnant" or "not pregnant."

Make sure to follow the test directions for how long to wait before checking the results. It's usually two minutes or more. Most tests also have a control indicator. That's usually a line or another symbol that you can see in the result window. If you don't see that line or symbol, then the test isn't working. Try again with another test.

Many home pregnancy tests claim to be 99% accurate. But home pregnancy tests differ in their ability to find a pregnancy in people who have recently missed a period. If you get a negative test result, but you still think you might be pregnant, take another test one week after your missed period or contact your health care provider.

Fertility medication or other medicine that contains HCG might affect home pregnancy test results. Most medicines, though, including antibiotics and birth control pills, don't affect the accuracy of home pregnancy tests.

A false-positive might happen if you had a pregnancy loss soon after the fertilized egg attached to the uterine lining. You also may get a false-positive if you take a pregnancy test soon after taking fertility medicine that contains HCG. Problems with the ovaries and menopause also might lead to a false-positive test result.

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One study found that home pregnancy tests only have to detect hCG levels above 25 milli-international units per milliliter (mIU/mL) to achieve the commonly advertised 99% accuracy rate. The writers of an older 1991 study calculated that to detect 95% of pregnancies, a test would have to detect levels as low as 12.4 mIU/mL. But not all home pregnancy tests were consistently sensitive enough to do so.

If you think you may be pregnant after a missed period but got a negative result on your pregnancy test, wait a few days. Then retest. If you continue to miss your period, be sure to talk with your doctor to rule out any complications.

Breastfeeding is also unpredictable month to month. As babies grow, their feedings may change. For example, if your baby goes through a growth spurt and suddenly increases the frequency of night feedings, it may interfere with your cycle.

Medical conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) or thyroid problems may cause irregular cycles and missed periods. Some people may have very light periods, some may have very heavy periods, and some may skip periods altogether.

Birth control may cause irregularities in your cycle. Other types of medications may lead to a missed period, as well. For example, blood pressure drugs or allergy medications can throw off your cycle.

Each year, women in the U.S. rely on some 20 million home pregnancy tests to learn potentially life-altering news. Despite marketing claims that such tests are 99 percent accurate, research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis over the past decade has shown that up to 5 percent of pregnancy tests return results indicating a woman is not pregnant when, in reality, she is.

Makers of pregnancy tests advise that tests taken in the first week or two after conception could be inaccurate because pregnancy hormones may not have risen high enough to be detected. But Ann Gronowski, PhD, a professor of pathology and immunology, and of obstetrics and gynecology, and medical director of core laboratory services at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, discovered that pregnancy tests can also give incorrect results to women five weeks or more into their pregnancies, when hormone levels tend to be very high. She published the first paper describing this problem in 2009, and since then has continued studying and raising the alarm on this serious but under-recognized issue. Recently, she and colleagues published a paper in the journal Clinical Chemistry, in which they evaluated how likely several pregnancy devices were to give false negative results.

But a degraded form of the hormone also can be found in the urine, and in some devices the first antibody will bind to the degraded form. The amount of the degraded form, called hCG core fragment, goes up as pregnancy progresses. The more of the fragmented hormone that is around, the more likely the first antibody will accidentally capture the fragment instead of the intact hormone. However, the signal antibody does not respond to the fragment so it does not change color when that happens, and therefore you get a negative result even though the hormone might be present.

It depends on the device. They all use different antibodies, and some are better at discriminating the full hormone from the fragment than others. We looked at 11 of the most commonly used hospital pregnancy tests to see if they were susceptible to false negatives when levels of the hormone fragment were high. Seven were somewhat susceptible, two were highly susceptible, and only two tests were not susceptible. The worst one gave false negatives in 5 percent of the urine samples of pregnant women tested. That was, unfortunately, the test we were using when that initial patient came in. Based on our research, we have switched to a test that does not have this false-negative problem.

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