Sep 29, 2008 9:23 am US/Eastern
Dr. Mallika's Files: 'Am I Pregnant?'
Each week Dr. Mallika Marshall shares cases based on true stories from a local urgent care clinic, exclusively on wbztv.com. Names and identifiable characteristics of patients have been omitted or changed to protect patient privacy.
This Week's Case: A 26 year old woman comes to urgent care requesting a
pregnancy test. She says for the past week, she's been having some lower abdominal pains that feel like menstrual cramps and recurrent headaches. She's also noticed that certain smells make her feel nauseated. She said that she did a home pregnancy test a few days ago and it was positive, but she just wants to make sure. She and her significant other have been
trying to conceive, and she would be thrilled if she was, in fact, pregnant.
We have a lot of women come to our clinic requesting pregnancy tests to confirm what they have suspected all along. They often have many of the
tell-tale symptoms of early pregnancy like headaches, nausea, fatigue, and breast tenderness and more often than not, they have already done a pregnancy test at home that has come out positive. But many women wonder if a home pregnancy test is not as accurate as those performed at a clinic and want to confirm the result.
Home pregnancy tests look for the presence of a pregnancy hormone, called hCG, in the urine and are quite reliable if used correctly. hCG levels usually become detectable in the urine about 10 days after conception. Even though some tests may be accurate enough to identify a pregnancy on the first day of a woman's missed menstrual period, most kits are more accurate about a week later.
The urine pregnancy tests that are used in most clinics are similar to the ones you can buy in a drugstore and are no more or less accurate, on average. So if you have a positive home pregnancy test, you should consider yourself pregnant and begin to seek prenatal care. If a home pregnancy test is negative, and you still haven't gotten your period in a week, test again. If you still have concerns, call your primary care doctor who may recommend a blood test which can detect hCG hormone levels earlier than urine tests can.
Follow-up
The urine test we performed in the clinic was also positive, and the patient was reassured that she was, indeed, pregnant. She was given a prescription for prenatal vitamins, advised to avoid cigarette smoke and alcohol, and given an appointment in the prenatal clinic upstairs.
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