Pregnancy tests - how reliable??

[veryworriedfriend]

Hi all, not really sure if I'm posting in the right place. Was out with friends tonight and one close friend confided that she thought she may be pregnant...this is huge for me, said friend is only 18yrs old and I worry for her but mostly because if she is preggers it is to her ex. who just happens to be my baby brother!!! I talked to her about how she felt, what she thought she may do etc etc.....and then I offered her a pregnancy test ( I always have a couple in the house!) she agreed it was a good idea to know for sure and she did the test...we read it immediately and were relieved it was negative.....friend has just gone home, was clearing up, picked up test and realised it was reading pos!! have gone back and re-read instuctions it says not to read after 10 mins. We read after 2 mins and cast test aside, friend left very quickly afterwards and I am pretty certain I'm reading test no more than 13-15 mins after taking. Have tried to call friend but no answer, even got dh out of bed to re-read test for me! (he agrees - it's reading pos) How reliable are these tests??? the ones I had in are cheap ones made by a company called 'acon' >> anyone heard of them? are their tests reliable?
I know I HAVE to tell my friend about this and urge her to get a reliable test done..but for my own noseyness ( and the outside chance that I may get to be an aunt!!) what do you mumsnetters think??

[Cadmum]

I would be worried as well... Having said that, I am not familiar with this brand of test.

I am thinking that false positives are extremely rare but if the instructions do say not to read the results after 10 minutes then it seems safe to think that there must be a reason.

I agree that you should tell your friend of your findings and encourage her to buy another test.

Sorry, this is probably not overly helpful but I am running on empty and really should be in bed. I just couldn?t imagine you waiting until morning for a reply.

[rubles]

I used ACON with no problems so think they are fine if used properly.
How far along does she think she would be?

It says disregard it after 10 minutes for a reason, so that was a negative. But now you are worrying do it again to put you minds at rest - leave it a day and then do another one as apparently the level of the hormone doubles each day, so there would be less room for doubt.

[peepee]

veryworriedfreind,
Make sure she does another and tell her to do it first thing in the morning with her first wee.
HCG levels are at their highest in the morning. I have just had the sam thing. I did two that were + and GP did a negative. He did another for me in the morning and it was a +.

Good luck

[auntymandy]

I always thought a test could say negative when positive but not the other way round. It picks up a hormone and cant pick it up if its not there iyswim!

[TrickorTwiglett]

if you read after the stated time you can get a false positive with an evaporation line so it is not accurate. I don't think you can know either way

it would be worth her testing again

[munz]

my first one this time was acon, it came up as pos after about 8 mins I think (althou not 100% had to get DH to confirm times and do another test incase.) tbh i'd get ur friend to do another one if she can do, (perhaps a more reliable one if u don't have the acon avaliable)

[auntymandy]

any new results?

[veryworriedfriend]

Thanks all, Have spoken to friend and told her she needs to do another test. She's very scared poor thing.
She hasn't done one yet, she just wasn't up to it yesterday but I will make sure she does one soon, will let you know how it turns out!

Thanks for the advise

[veryworriedfriend]

Hi again, thought I'd let you all know. Friend did another test today and it is positive!
Not really sure what to do to help, feeling a bit lost in it all at the moment.
She is very very scared, but adament she's keeping the baby, my brother who she told this evening is adament she should have an abortion. He is also absolutely terrified
Both are turning to me for support and I don't really know what I can say or do!!
Sorry for rambling, had a hard night tonight.

[mymama]

Very hard situation for you to be in!!! They really need to sit down and talk about it, but in the end I really believe it is the woman's choice. All you can advise is that she needs to do what is right for her and the baby. Does she really know what a baby involves and can she support it without your brother's help??? I often feel sorry for the father in these situations when they don't want the baby but are then obligated to support financially. Do you know if contraception was used???

[veryworriedfriend]

Not sure about contraception mymama, have gotton them to talk to each other instead of seperately to me now! It was getting quite hard trying to talk to both of them. lol
I really feel for both of them and am seeing both sides. I personally could never imagine having an abortion and can completely relate to her on that one, but can understand from little bro's side too, he's young is still studying and this is the last thing he wants. Plus they split up before she found out so it's not as if they're even together.

Very very hard. Am sat up waiting for the inevitable phone call I know is coming!

[auntymandy]

thinking of you