Yes, it's important not to drink too much of any liquid including water or alcohol before you take a pregnancy test. It's better to wait until you naturally need to pass urine. This way, you'll avoid diluting your level of pregnancy hormone and getting a false 'Not Pregnant' result.
Don't drink too much water, or any liquid, before taking a pregnancy test. Excess fluids can impact the accuracy of the test results, so if your urine is diluted or pale yellow, hold off on taking a test.
If you do it at another time of day, try to make sure your pee has been in your bladder for at least three hours. Don't drink excessive amounts of fluids before you take a pregnancy test. This can dilute (thin out) your HCG levels.
Drinking too much water prior to taking a pregnancy test can dilute your urine, making it less likely the test will detect the necessary amount of human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), which can then produce a false negative.
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.
However, you don't need to stress too much about taking a pregnancy test at a specific time of day. Using urine later on when it's less concentrated may only “hypothetically delay a positive result by only 12 to 24 hours,” advises Dr. Flanagan.
It is possible to get a false negative on a pregnancy test (where the test says you're not pregnant, even though you are), particularly if you've tested before your period is due. If you've just had one negative result, you could try waiting for a few days and testing again, just to be sure.
Should I dip my home pregnancy test in urine, or pee on it? Most tests allow you to either place the absorbent tip in your urine stream for (usually) five seconds or dip the tip in a collected urine sample for five to 20 seconds. Accuracy is not dependent on the method as long as you follow the instructions.
Use First-Morning Urine
This makes it more likely to get an accurate test reading. 1 If you're worried you'll forget to collect it when you first get up, close the lid to your toilet and set the pregnancy test on top. Some say that if you hold your urine for more than four hours it is the same as first-morning urine.
Test too early and the amount of hCG in your urine isn't detectable. As many as 9 out of 15 women will get a false negative until seven or eight weeks of pregnancy.
The first morning urine is the urine you void when you get up for the day. If you get up during the night, it is not necessary to catch that urine. You can wait until you get up for the day. For women who work night shift, your first morning urine will be the urine you void after you slept during the day.
Dehydration leads to concentrated and less urine production which in turn might contain high concentration of hCG. 6,7 So, if very high levels of hCG are suspected, the test should then be repeated with the diluted specimen, 1 in 10 or 100.
Collect the first urine of the day in a clean cup and add 2-3 drops of the same to the slot on the stick. Wait for 5 minutes and check for results: If the strip shows two pink lines, it indicates that you are pregnant. If it shows one line, you are not pregnant.
Drinking too much water — or any liquid — can affect a pregnancy test. The hormone hCG is more concentrated in your urine first thing in the morning. If you haven't missed your period yet, your hCG level may not be high enough to be detected in more diluted urine.
If your pregnancy test results seem to be getting lighter, it could be because you tested after drinking water and your urine was more diluted. Or, the first test result could have been an evaporation line and not a positive result. Test again in the morning for a more accurate result.
Though it is now known clearly some chemical reaction takes place when you pee on the strip which contains hCG antibodies in the strip. Once this chemical reaction has taken place, it cannot occur again. It is best to dip in the urine once and discard it.
Know this: All Clearblue® pregnancy tests are over 99% accurate from the day you expect your period. False positives very rarely occur, and are often due to medical conditions or certain medications. False negatives, while more common, typically occur due to testing too early or drinking too much liquid before testing.
In very early pregnancy, it is possible (but not common) that drinking a lot of water during the day and testing in the afternoon or evening could affect the accuracy of the test. When urine is diluted, it can be harder for some pregnancy tests to determine whether hCG is present.
Home pregnancy tests are done on the urine, but can differ in how early they will detect a pregnancy. In many cases, you can get a positive result from a home test 10 days after conception. For a more accurate result, it is best to wait until after you have missed your period to take a test.
Certain drugs can also cause this (tranquilisers, anticonvulsants, hypnotics and fertility drugs). Other reasons for false results are: dirty urine collecting cup (detergent residue, for example, is known to cause false-positive results)
There are many reasons your period could be late other than pregnancy. Stress, illness, and changes in weight or nutrition can all affect your menstrual cycle. If you're taking hormonal birth control or took emergency contraception, that can also change your period.
It can be tempting to try remedies or foods that purportedly help raise your hCG levels. Unfortunately, there's no way to change your hCG levels or make them go up. What's more, hCG levels reflect information about your pregnancy, but changing them wouldn't address the cause of any potential problems.