Mumsnet Talk

They're clearly designed to make women obsessive about becoming pregnant - and with ever increasing promises of an accurate result three, four, five days before your period is even due their aim is clearly just to cause stress and to make yet more money for the manufacturers.

Ultimately, if you're pregnant you will still be pregnant if you test a couple of weeks later, and if you're having a chemical pregnancy, is there really any need to know? I'm not talking about a full-on miscarriage - of course I'm not, but where the embrio simply doesn't implant but is picked up because of some uber sensitive test, isn't that just adding to the whole stress that is ttc?

When I rule the world I will ban them, and only allow pg tests that are accurate from two weeks after a period is due...

Well it's not on a par with a nuclear bomb

however, whatt would have once been described as a late period is now the platform for intense mourning.

I would say it's more to do with the people than the test.

I still look (not literally because that'd be creepy) fondly at the tescos checkout woman who sold me my pregnancy test for DD2

What about women who get pregnant unexpectedly and want an abortion? Better to have an early result and be able to act sooner rather than later, surely?

Sorry i wasn't ttc i was young and my relationship (really my boyfriend) was shitty. I knew in my head and I just had to know for sure. To get my head around it. I couldn't have found out at the Dr in front of a stranger as I was all over the place.

Just so you know I kept my lovely DS but not the shitty boyfriend who turned out to be a shitty dad too Xx

"however, whatt would have once been described as a late period is now the platform for intense mourning." very well said.

"What about women who get pregnant unexpectedly and want an abortion? Better to have an early result and be able to act sooner rather than later, surely?" you wouldn't be able to get an abortion before your period was even due. Seriously a few days would be unlikely to make that much difference.

Women have been having abortions for decades, and the home pregnancy test has only been around for about twenty years.

Flame me if you wish but handy to know early if there's a night out on the lash on the cards.

Although, that said, I (personally) wouldn't assume I wasn't pg until the lady in red rocked up.

I have to change medication when I am pregnant and the earlier the better. So I think you are being a bit assumptive about everyone being in the same healthy state you are.

At 6 weeks pg I would be at serious risk of having damaged my baby with normal meds so you ruling the world would be shit for me.

I love home pregnancy tests.

I have only used them when my period was due and I was "sure" I was pregnant.

So, I was left with the other of the two test pack. :-D

The issue is definitely the person and not the tests. ;-)

I get what you're saying, but it's up to the individual if they want the added stress. You don't have to test early if you don't want to.

No way would I have done, for exactly all the reasons listed above, but if someone else wants the stress and neurosis, who are any of us to deprive them?

YANBU - It's ridiculous to do a pregnancy test before your period is late. It is just a way of the manufacturers making money out of vulnerable women. They are not even that accurate until the day your period is due anyway. I also agree that knowing about a chemical pregnancy can only lead to unnecessary grief.

"The issue is definitely the person and not the tests." "If someone else wants the stress and neurosis..."

Slight lack of sympathy here for those of us who have undergone very early miscarriage or chemical pregnancy. I found it a devastating experience - and I'm certainly not someone who wants stress and neurosis, or is usually a compulsive checker of ANYTHING. I was, however, 40 and had been trying to get pregnant for half a decade. I had five days of a miracle, then complete heartbreak. All the while treated as a bit nuts at A&E, and reassured by many that I hadn't 'really' been pg, as though that would cancel out my distress. Christ yes, I was vulnerable; I was probably mad as a bug.

So YANBU, WannaBe. Most of us have had the experience (several times, by the time you're my age) of a 'late period' that was clearly different from other late periods, and strongly suspected that we may have had a very early mc. Nothing to be gained by moving that uncertainty into certainty and then grief, it seems to me.

Well for me they are a life saver. My periods have become rather erratic of late (they come, they don't, they do what they like, possibly peri menopausal, seeing someone soon about it) and HPTs are vital assuring me that I am not pregnant, every other month.

So, as in my case, it is nice to get the reassurance as I don't want to be pregnant again.

Wanted to add that I have never done with without my period being late/not coming at all. I don't dot hem for the hell of it.

So for me, they do what they need to, because to go to the drs each time a period didn't arrive would cost me $50 a time. I can't afford that!

I was 3 months pregnant before I had my first test.

In those days they only scanned you once too.

Can't understand all this urgency to know whether you are / not.

No, I don't get it. Is this about early warnings from pg tests, or the fact they exist at all?

Would you otherwise just wait to see if you get a bump, when it's too late to decide what to do about it?

Or would you visit your doctor, inconveniencing yourself and adding to the huge number of people who already waste their time?

Underage? Raped? One night stand? TTC for ages? I'd want to know quickly.

Hmm I think I prefer the home pg tests. Either I am, or am not pregnant. Answer given. Move forward with the result.

I must have missed something, surely, because this all seems obvious to me.

ReneeVivien - I'm one of the people you quoted and I had two early miscarriages in my quest to get pregnant with DC1.

I'm fully sympathetic and that's exactly why I would never test a second before my period was due - because I understand the deliriously-happy-followed-by-heartbreak experience that is knowing and then being deprived.

But that's just me. I would never tell anyone else not to test early - if they'e going into it with their eyes open and are aware that learning of a pregnancy only for it not to eventuate - i.e. they'e open to the 'stress and neurosis' - is a distinct possibility via that course of action, then that's up to them.

Well I tested early because I wanted to and I'd spent my own money on the tests and am fully capable of deciding what I spend my own money on. And it was absolutely wonderful to get a BFP and I'm glad I knew so early.

So everyone's different, maybe let people make their own decisions? You don't have to use them if you don't want to.

COMPLETELY agree. A baby forum I used to use drove me mad with the mourning over chemical pregnancies. Having had 7 miscarriages between 9-16 weeks, I just found it a little disturbing tbh.

However I simply avoided the ttc pages and the serial testers to save my.sanity!

I don't think that there is anything wrong with home pregnancy tests per se. I like to keep my medicalised experiences to a minimum, so more than happy to pee on a stick in the comfort of my own home. But yes I can't see the point of testing closer and closer to the point of conception, waiting until your period is due when you already think that you might be pregnant seems more sensible to me, and it must be very expensive for those who are in hope every month. I suppose that is the point really. I agree that it could also cause a great deal of heartache. It must be upsetting enough to get your period when you were so very much hoping to be pregnant, but if you really really thought that you were pregnant I imagine that would be very much harder.

I disagree slightly. You could be describing all sorts of situations tbh. We do live in a world where all sort of information is available to us. Things which even 10 years ago we wouldn't have been able to access. Our lives, not just pregnancy, are marked out by the ability to do things faster, sooner, better.

With pregnancy tests I think the issue is the marketing and peer pressure to some extent. Clearblue for example and their 'can you afford to get this wrong' rubbish. And it works. I see it here daily. I've got a positive test, but I'm going to get a £15 digital just to confirm it. Or they're the best ones, you definitely need to get at least one. And oh crap the indicator thing hasn't switched from 1-2 to 2-3 overnight, I need to buy 8 more of them.

It's very freeing to realise that in this we have choice. And if you choose freely to test early and sensibly knowing the risks then I think they're a good thing for myriad reasons. What I don't like is vulnerable and sad women being wrung out to dry by the process. Or the encouragement of it. I test early, always have but I also already know I'm pregnant at that point and am choosing early testing knowing full well what chemical pregnancies are and the high chance of them happening. I like having this choice.

A friend has very recently had a chemical pregnancy. She was 8 weeks, and baby stoped growing at 5 weeks, which is when she started bleeding. She tested at the very earliest opportunity, positive result, and then suffered. Whilst I know it doesnt prevent miscarriages/chemical pregnancies happening, testing later can avoid some heartbreak.

What she knows to have once been a foetus would have been, to the best of her knowledge, a late period.

I was ttc when breastfeeding, my periods were irregular to non-existent. If I hadn't been able to regularly test at home my poor doctor would have got sick of the sight of me.