Archive for the 'pregnancy testing' Category

One of the great wonders that womanhood have been endowed with is the pregnancy and childbirth. The enchanting experience of your pregnancy could even start before your actual knowledge about it and you can make all your three stages of pregnancy really wonderful with proper planning. The three various stages of your pregnancy is also called as trimesters and each trimester will last long for 13 weeks. Further, within the gambit of these trimesters, each trimester is unique and exceptional both in progress and in your own way of experiencing it.

Trimester Stages

The first 13 weeks of your pregnancy is known as first trimester and your joy can know no bounds in this particular trimester. However, besides your wonderful and enchanting experience about your pregnancy, you may also get few discomforts in the form of early pregnancy symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, morning sickness, etc.

Though all your three pregnancy trimesters are equally important, you have to accord extra care during your first trimester, as this is the stage when your baby will develop its vital organs and hence you should consider all the healthy options that would make your baby grow healthy.

Further, your growing baby in its first trimester is highly prone to developing complications and hence you should see that you are stopping your smoking habit and alcohol consumption totally. You should also eat healthy and stay in shape without much weight gain so as to help your baby grow healthy.

The second 13 weeks of your pregnancy cycle is considered as the second trimester and you can see your happiness continuing with rich experience. During this stage, you will start noticing visible symptoms in your body due to the growth of the fetus and most of your early pregnancy symptoms such as nausea or morning sickness would have gone totally.

You can also see your abdomen bulging in size and can even feel your baby kicking your belly from inside. In this stage your baby will have distinct growth cycle such as bone hardening and would have started its own resting or sleeping cycle too.

During your second trimester, you are more likely to develop few pregnancy-related discomforts in the form of backache or headaches, but such symptoms are normal. Your second trimester is the time for you to take rest and make your life free from stress and you should also lay importance in your healthy diet, drinking enough fluids, and to stay fit.

The third trimester or the last stage of your pregnancy is again a period of 13 weeks and in this stage you will become more anxious due to the approaching due date of delivery. As the due date for you to become a parent approaches, your emotions will get mixed and you will start wondering as how to tend the tender baby once you deliver it.

In this stage, due to the pressure exerted by your baby on your bladder, you may feel like urinating frequently and you may also develop restlessness and fatigue. On nearing the d-day, you may also start experiencing Braxton hick s contractions, which is a sure indication that you are nearing your delivery date. Each trimester of your pregnancy has got its own unique characteristics and only when you experience them actually you will come to know of its grandeur in full.

The moment you come to know about your pregnancy, you will immediately start thinking of the probable due date and build dreams of seeing your newborn baby. Further, besides you, the people around you will also equally get excited to know the pregnancy due date. When it comes to calculating your delivery due date, it can be done in many ways and for example you can count 40 weeks from your last menstrual period.

Further, you can also make use of the automated pregnancy due date calculator with which you can exactly arrive at the due date for your delivery of the baby. Besides what has been seen above, your doctor will also have his/her own pregnancy due date calculator that will normally be based on diagnosis and other findings. However, today there are many pregnancy due date calculators available that can help you to calculate your due date all by yourself and you can find these calculators in Internet with a simple search.

How to Arrive at the Due Date

The duration of any normal pregnancy will last for around 40 weeks commencing from the first day of your last period. In order to arrive at the your own pregnancy due date calculation correctly, you have just add 7 days to the date of your last period and start counting. For instance, if your anticipated period falls on February 10th, you should just add 7 days to the number and you will get 17 and to calculate the month add nine months to your current arrived at date and what you will get will be November 17th as your due date.

There are also other pregnancy calculators such as automated pregnancy due date calculators that are made available in Internet which uses the date of your last period and average number of days of your monthly cycles as input and give you the probable due date duly calculated.

Implications of your Due Date

Your pregnancy has to be monitored and followed thoroughly and for this purpose your doctor will use the pregnancy due date calculator. Further as you approach your calculated due date, the time will be made use to monitor more closely and your adversities such as high blood pressure etc., will be dealt with appropriately. Your doctor will also watch the growth of baby and decide whether the growth is appropriate for the pregnancy term and in case of necessity your doctor may also induce labor so as to save you and the baby from any medical conditions.

When you analyze things, you will come to know that only a very small percentage of women delivers their babies on due date but you can still use a pregnancy due date calculator to make your pregnancy safe and healthy.

The moment you get married, your next expectation will be to bear a child and a yet another expectation would be to know more about pregnancy, its stages and childbirth. Pregnancy is one of the most sought after experiences in womanhood, and you will also be looking forward to know more about it and to undergo the enchanting experience. Though no two pregnancies will be alike, when it comes to the stages of pregnancy, all pregnancies will have same stages and there are 3 stages comprising 13 weeks each.

First Trimester

The first 13 weeks of the pregnancy cycle is regarded as the first trimester and it is the most important of all the trimesters. It is this first trimester in which your baby will start developing all its vital organs and it is the stage where the pregnancy can develop many complications too. If you are a smoker it is highly advisable that you quit the habit immediately, lest your smoking may descend as birth defects on your baby when it is born. Similarly if you have a habit of consuming alcohol you should stop it instantly and you are also supposed to reduce your caffeine intake besides ensuring a regular intake of essential vitamins and minerals.

When it comes to the symptoms during your early pregnancy stage, you may get the classic morning sickness, frequent fatigue and urinating urge. Though all women are not likely to get all the symptoms, you need not panic if you do not exhibit any or all the symptoms that a normal pregnant woman would show. Make sure to visit your doctor regularly and it is this trimester that you should learn to take care of you and your growing baby carefully.

Second Trimester

The second 13 weeks that is extending from 14th to 26th week of pregnancy is known as second trimester and it is in this trimester that you will stop getting morning sickness. Further, you will also start feeling the movement of your baby inside your womb in this trimester, and you may also start getting few discomforts in the form of back pain and headaches. Your physical appearance will also improve to a great extent due to many hormonal changes and you may also gain weight and see your abdomen bulging due to the growth of your baby. Your baby s bones will also become harder during this trimester and hence you should continue to take all the prescribed vitamins and minerals without fail.

Third Trimester

The last and the final third stage of the pregnancy will again consist of 13 weeks and it is in this stage that you will also start feeling anxious as the due date for delivery keep approaching fast. If you can observe yourself closely, you can see your emotions getting mixed and anxious and you may also start wondering about the various pros and cons of tending a tender baby. In this third trimester, your fetus would have completed all its growth cycles and have grown into a full fledged baby ready to see the outer world thus making you happy and exited.

Getting pregnant and delivering a beautiful child is really a wonderful experience in any woman s life, but you may be wondering as how to get your early pregnancy signs read and interpreted correctly. When it comes to the various signs or symptoms that indicate your pregnancy there are many of them and let us see few of them here for better understanding.

Pregnancy and its Early Revealing Signs

Once you are pregnant, you will first notice a skip in your regular periods. Though irregular periods or skipping periods may be a sign of other medical conditions such as stress or poor diet too, you may be able to identify your missing period with that of your pregnancy if you miss your period within seven days of its regularity. Once if you can correlate your missing period with that of pregnancy possibility then you can take up other regular tests for confirmation.

There is also some possibility of your experiencing little bleeding even without regular menstrual cycle and in such case you can contact your gynecologist and get yourself diagnosed for confirming your conceiving. Besides what has been told above, you will also feel tenderness in your breasts and your areola will start getting darker with little enlargement.

The tenderness with slight pain in your breasts may be similar to common P.M.S. symptoms, but when you measure your body temperature you can find it to be little higher than normal which is a sure sign of your pregnancy due to ovulation. Further, you may also feel as if you have gained weight, but however when you measure your weight you may not find any high increase in that.

The other signs of your probable pregnancy is enlargement of your lower abdomen, and you can also see a dark line running across your abdomen starting from your central part of your stomach and extending up to your pubic area. Out of all tell tale symptoms of probable pregnancy, the morning sickness is the classic symptom that will happen during the first month of your pregnancy.

During this period you will have nausea or vomiting and this morning sickness may bother you at any point of time, not necessarily only on mornings. You will also feel tired and this fatigue symptom is mainly due to the hormonal changes that takes place during your pregnancy cycle.

You will also experience an embarrassing situation of a small amount urine leaking whenever you laugh or sneeze and this is due to the extending uterus exerting pressure on your bladder. And besides this situation making you to visit wash room frequently, you will also develop an urge to urinate frequently. It is also common for smoking women to develop a metallic taste on consuming foods and a yet another symptom is darkening of your skin in areas of your cheek, forehead, or the bridge of your nose and this condition is medically known as Melasma or the mask of pregnancy .

While trying to understand what has been stated above, you should bear in mind that you may not exhibit al the symptoms because early symptoms of pregnancy are not similar and they may vary with various women. You can make it a point to visit your doctor for any confirmation as soon as you see or experience any of the early pregnancy signs.

Being a woman, you are sure to aspire to get your pregnancy checked or tested at the earliest possible time because earlier the confirmation more is the time to enjoy the wonderful event in any woman s life. Further once you know well in time that you are pregnant you can have ample time to plan your health care accordingly so as to deliver your child hale and healthy.

The good news here is that there is one test by name EPT pregnancy test that can correctly predict your pregnancy even few days before your actual or the probable menstrual cycle and this can make you stay in an advantageous position as far as your health care during pregnancy is concerned.

What is EPT Pregnancy Test and How it Works

The basic principle with which the EPT pregnancy test conducted is on the presence of hormone in a woman s urine sample. The name of the hormone is called Human Chorionic Gonadotropin or HCG in short and this hormone could be present or detected in your urine sample only when you are pregnant.

However, doctors prescribe that you should take your EPT pregnancy test at least a day or two after you miss your period, especially with the first urine in the morning, as the HCG hormone will be at its highest level at this time. Further, whenever you subject yourself for the EPT pregnancy test in the morning, especially after your start missing your periods, the result will almost cent percent accurate.

Method of Using EPT Pregnancy Test

The EPT pregnancy test could be carried out by yourself and it is easy too, but however you should put in extra care to get the EPT pregnancy test done successfully. Once you have the test kit, you can remove the test strip or stick from the packaging and expose the stick after removing the purple colored cap. Now you can hold the stick under your urine stream and it is always preferable to put the stick under the urinary stream after initial letting off some urine.

Then after keeping the test stick in your urine stream for about 5 to 10 seconds, the same can be removed for further analysis. Alternatively you can also collect you urine in a clean cup and dip the stick in it for about 20 seconds for better results. The test stick will initially absorb the urine and once placed over a flat surface you can see the results in the form of a plus sign or a minus sign after two minutes time, a plus sign confirming your pregnancy and the minus sign otherwise.

As said earlier, an EPT pregnancy test is easy to use, and within minutes you can get your pregnancy confirmed in the comfort of your home. Further, if you can carry out the test after you start skipping your periods, then the test result will be more predictable and certain. You should also note to use your first early morning urine, as the same will have the hormone concerned in ample quantities that make the test more reliable.

With the handy and convenient EPT pregnancy test you can get your pregnancy tested at the earliest possible time and start basking in the delightful and wonderful experience of motherhood besides taking all the necessary care to protect your growing baby.

The moment you get married, your next important expectation will be on getting pregnant and to deliver a beautiful child. It is no doubt that getting pregnant will be a wonderful experience in your life, but getting to know your pregnancy at the very initial stage itself is still more wonderful as you can have more time to experience and enjoy your motherhood.

But, you may be wondering as how to get your pregnancy correctly tested or known at the very initial stage itself? If you are one among the women who has the above question, then what you have on your hand is the right article that will guide you to identify your pregnancy precisely.

Pregnancy Symptoms that showoff initially

Missing periods is one of the classic early symptoms of pregnancy and it may be even the first one in few cases. The moment one of your ova gets fertilized by the male sperm, the resultant action is formation of zygote or the so-called embryo. The so formed embryo will start attaching itself to the inner walls of your uterus thus making you stop your menstrual cycle.

Though there may be little bleeding, you can easily differentiate that from your regular periods and you can also read your temperature and if you are pregnant then your regular temperature will be slightly on higher side. The other indicative symptoms of your pregnancy is that your breasts will start getting tender and the area around your nipples will also start getting darker with remarkable enlargement in your breast size.

When you observe your stomach area, you can also notice a dark line going down the central part of your stomach and the line will normally get extended from your belly area and run up to your pubic area. A yet another early symptom many women feel or experience during their pregnancy is the morning sickness where the women feel vomiting sensation or nausea and it is not necessary that you should get these symptoms only in the morning as the name suggests. You are more likely to get your morning sickness during your first month of pregnancy, and you may also start feeling tired and feel like urinating very often.

Pregnancy is one among the stages in any woman s life that results in hormonal changes and this will result in various symptoms such as frequent urination, sneezing, developing a metallic taste on foods, putting on weight suddenly, and mood swings. Further, during your early pregnancy you may notice your skin on face, cheek, forehead, and nose getting darker and this phenomenon of skin getting darker during pregnancy is medically known as melasma or the mask of pregnancy .

Though there is every possibility of you getting all the above symptoms during your early pregnancy, there is no guidance that you will exhibit all the symptoms, as these symptoms are known to vary with various women at various ages. Hence, it is advisable for you to look for such symptoms and get back to your doctor for further diagnosis.

Being a woman and that too with pregnancy, you are supposed to accord top priority to your diet. Though diet plays an important role in your pregnancy, this doesn t mean that you can lay your hands on and eat anything that you may see. In order to have a healthy pregnancy cycle you should have a well balanced diet so as to sustain and maintain two lives and you should also ensure that you get enough nutrients so as to deliver a health baby. Now with a firm seed of anxiety sown in your mind, you can find the following guidance on pregnancy diets useful.

Components of a Healthy Pregnancy Diet

Similar to any other diet, a healthy pregnancy diet is also a diet that can supply and augment your vitamins and minerals required during your pregnancy. During your pregnancy, you can take foods that are rich in fibers, nutrients and minerals and in this regard you can note to follow the standards set by the USDA food pyramid.

According to USDA, a healthy pregnancy diet should necessarily consist of six to eleven grain servings, at least 2 to 4 fruit servings, minimum of 4 vegetable servings, dairy servings to an extent of four and more, and a minimum of 3 protein servings. Though there is no restriction on your eating sweets and other fats during your pregnancy, it is always advisable to be moderate in your sweet and fat consumption and if you can additionally take folic acid with multi vitamin then you can see your baby getting stronger and healthy.

Foods to be Avoided During Pregnancy

While you are being advised on various diet aspects, you should also know that there are few foodstuffs that are to be avoided during your pregnancy. For instance, seafoods such as raw oysters and sushi and raw meat and poultry should be totally avoided, as these raw foods can do more damage to the developing fetus.

Further, during your pregnancy you should also be cautious not to take any unpasteurized milk and soft cheeses and when it comes to consumption alcohol and/or smoking habit there is no second opinion that the same should be avoided totally.

There are also certain kind of foods such as caffeinated beverage and tuna and other fish varieties that has to be taken only in moderation during your pregnancy, and when it comes to moderation you can consider taking it once in a week as the rule. Though diet soda cannot do any harm doctors advice that it should also preferably be avoided for better.

It is Two Lives!

Whenever you are pregnant, there is no necessity to inform or remind you that there are two lives involved and you are supposed to take care of two lives. However, this particular advice doesn t expect you to eat twice your regular food, but the idea is to ensure supply of all essential nutrients both to the pregnant mother and to the growing baby by eating a balanced diet.

When it comes to calorie count that has to be increased, then you can roughly decide it as an additional 300 calories a day over and above your regular requirement. A healthy individual may need around 2,500 calories a day and when you are pregnant then you should see that your calorie intake is around 2800 a day.

It is also quite natural and possible for you to develop many cravings for certain food items or snacks such as crackers or pretzels during your pregnancy and in such circumstances it will be safe for you take into account these calories too to arrive at your overall consumption.

It is quite normal for you to head for a pregnancy test if you start experiencing one of the indicating pregnancy symptoms, however, you cannot rely on pregnancy test results that you have obtained from the home kit you have just procured, as these results are capable of getting adversely affected by many factors. Most of the home pregnancy test kits are based on urine sample tests and these kits use the effect of hormones to change the color of either the container in which the urine is collected or the stick that has been dipped into your urine and based on which the test result is adjudged as either positive or negative.

There could be instances that you can end up with a false positive pregnancy test and when your gynecologist carries out a yet another test, you may be disappointed to know about your false pregnancy results. Doctors advice women to carry out their home pregnancy test only after they miss their first periods and that too with their early morning first urine alone for getting best and authenticated results. As said earlier, you can end up with false positive pregnancy test results and we will see few of the factors that could trigger a wrong test result.

Factors that Influence A False Positive Pregnancy Test

Miscarriage is one of the reasons that could falsely get diagnosed as pregnancy in any home pregnancy test kits and this situation is called a chemical pregnancy. Such situation is possible if you have had an early miscarriage and the chemical changes that have taken place inside you would have been wrongly interpreted as pregnancy. Hence it is always desirable for you to consult your doctor if you have missed one of your periods and/or have experienced other related pregnancy symptoms.

The hormones or other chemicals present in your body can also falsely be tested as pregnancy. For example, the HCG or the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin hormone shots that has been prescribed to treat infertility in women might cause your test to show up as false positive pregnancy test results.

Whenever you are using the indicator stick from the home kit, the evaporation lines on the stick may show a false status that will make you to believe you are regnant. Hence, it is advisable to scrupulously follow all the laid down instructions in any home pregnancy test kits so as to avoid any possible disappointment later.

You must first bear in your mind that home pregnancy test kits are to be used only for identifying the pregnancy possibility and they cannot serve as a foolproof method for testing your pregnancy. It is always preferable and recommended to consult a licensed obstetrician to get your pregnancy confirmed so that you can really start enjoying all the wonderful times of your motherhood.

Pregnancy is one of the most wonderful experiences in a woman s life, and the experience will be still more enchanting if it happens to be the first pregnancy. However, pregnancies are fraught with dangers too and there are many unanticipated complications that may crop up and spoil the very joy of seeing your tender baby s face. Of many pregnancy-related complications, tubal pregnancy is one that may catch you unaware especially during your first pregnancy.

What is a Tubal Pregnancy

A tubal pregnancy is actually considered to be a miscarriage and in tubal pregnancy, your fertilized egg or zygote instead of reaching your uterus and growing there, it will get lodged elsewhere in places such as your fallopian tube and this condition is termed as tubal pregnancy.

Tubal pregnancies are always considered to be dangerous, and once you know that you are an unfortunate person with tubal pregnancy, then you have no other option other than terminating it medically. Tubal pregnancies are capable of damaging your reproductive organs severely the result of which may make you incapable of conceiving a baby in future. There are also possibilities of the tubal pregnancy causing internal bleeding in you and your life itself will be in danger if you do not resort to treatment immediately.

Obvious Warning Signs Indicating Tubal Pregnancy

Tubal pregnancy is in fact a medical condition that has to be handled and treated immediately as a medical emergency. However, you tubal pregnancy can reveal itself with few specific symptoms when you are pregnant and once you know them correctly, you can easily identify your position and take medical recourse. Please bear in mind that despite your knowing that your pregnancy is in fact a tubal one, if you do not seek medical help, you will certainly risk your life and your chances of future pregnancies too. Here are few typical tubal pregnancy signs for you to know:

If you have vaginal discharge with blood in it then the chances of your pregnancy being a tubal pregnancy is very high. Vaginal bleeding is not normal in regular pregnancies and hence note to contact your doctor immediately if you happen to witness discharge with bleeding.

Your early normal pregnancy cycle will not be painful at all and if you happen to get severe pelvic pain, especially in your first trimester, then you should not lose time in getting your pregnancy evaluated to know whether it is a tubal one or not.

If you develop a severe fatigue and nausea then consult a doctor immediately

Though the symptoms of a tubal pregnancy may more or less resemble a normal pregnancy, you should be prudent enough to differentiate the signs of your tubal pregnancy from that of normal one. Further, you should also get your pregnancy properly diagnosed by competitive doctors so as to rule out the tubal pregnancy possibility.

Do you know most of the home pregnancy test kits are based on sensitivity? All the pregnancy kits are having the chemical to identify the presence of HCG. HCG stands for human chorionic gonadotropin. The pregnant test is positive once this hormone is detected in the urine. This is produced in the placenta and present in the blood and urine of the pregnant women.

Sometimes the traces of this hormone is detected in the urine, if you have consumed fertility drugs with an intention to get conceive. Hence waiting for at least couple of weeks to go for test of pregnancy after ingestion of this fertility drugs is essential. Otherwise it may lead to false positive.

Different brands of home pregnancy test kits consist have varied home pregnancy test sensitivity. Once the home pregnancy test sensitivity increases the days of tests also can be reduced. (From 2 months to 4 weeks).

HCG and Sensitivity
Home pregnancy test sensitivity refers to the point at which HCG can be detected by the home pregnancy test. HCG is measured in thousand units and the typical home pregnancy test can detect the hormone from between 25 mIU (thousand international units) to 100 mIU.

Equate, a Wal-Mart’s store brand offers two home pregnancy test sensitivity choices- White and purple. The white one will detect the HCG at 25 mIU while the purple one will detect 100 mIU.

Another package - First Response may detect HCG level as little as 12.5mIU to 15 m IU. The kit that is having high home pregnancy test sensitivity rating is the one that offers the result on the first missed day of the period or even before as missed period.

After studying this article, you may come to conclusion that the higher priced home pregnancy tests would automatically have a low home pregnancy test sensitivity rating, but it is not true.

EPT, the first home pregnancy kit on the market is having years of reliability apart from detecting the pregnancy if the urine contains HCG above 40mIU. Still most of the women rely upon due to its convenience. Ept uses the words PREGNANT and NON-PREGNANT INSTEAD a line of demarcation.

Most of the women do like this test strip than any other strip owing to the reason that there is no need to stare at the test strip to confirm whether there is a line or not. EPT takes the speculation out of the home pregnancy test.

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