It’s disheartening to find you got a pregnancy test false positive. You were so sure that you were pregnant. You had read convincing statistics that home pregnancy tests are over 99% accurate. What you have to do at this point is relax, and move on. If you have interacted with pregnant women or spent some time surfing through the pregnancy websites, you should have known that pregnancy test false positive happens, though in rare cases. You might be that one rare case, so never stress too much about it.
Maybe, you did things wrongly. On the other end, some things were beyond your control and you could have done nothing. Let us look at what may have gone wrong during the pregnancy test…
1. Maybe you did not follow the pregnancy test instructions
Instructions are part of life, and life is unforgiving when we fail to follow them closely. Improper pregnancy testing is one of the reasons for a false positive. You either ignored the instructions altogether, or you did not follow them to the letter. Instead of getting a stop watch to time the pregnancy test, you assumed that five minutes had passed. Your assumption was wrong; maybe you read the results before or after the stipulated time. If you assumed the time, the results are probably assumed too. You do not know whether what you are holding in right or wrong.
2. Maybe the false positive was caused by certain medications
Most home pregnancy tests indicate a positive pregnancy test in the presence of a certain level of hCG in the body. It may be possible that you were using medications like the phenothiazine which can distort the pregnancy results. Maybe you were undergoing hCG therapy to treat luteal phase defect or an infertility problem. If so, you did not consult your doctor and request advice on the best time to take a home pregnancy test and thus the test result was inaccurate. Alternatively, the medication could have caused an increase of protein in your urine and thus the false positive result.
3. Maybe the false positive was due to certain medical conditions
Some medical conditions heighten the level of hCG in the body. Some of these conditions are breast cancer, testicular cancer, chorio carcinoma, and ovarian cancer. See a doctor if you think you have one of these conditions. It would benefit you to know early rather than wait and face the consequences later.
4. Maybe you used a defective pregnancy test
Maybe the pregnancy test was expired or defective. There is a 1% chance of inaccuracy in home pregnancy tests. We know the pregnancy tests are manufactured under controlled environments. However, machines or humans are bound to make mistakes at one time or the other. Maybe, the pregnancy test stick you used was not manufactured according. Thus, you got a false positive result after using it. In such a case, even if you follow the instructions, the results will most likely be erroneous.
The next time you get a pregnancy test false positive be sure to use these points to pinpoint what went wrong.
