How soon can you tell youre pregnant
Most early pregnancy symptoms before your period are strikingly similar to the side effects of PMS. Otherwise, the only way to know if other early pregnancy symptoms nausea, tender breasts, fatigue, bloating, sensitivity to smell, etc. Although you may start to feel early pregnancy symptoms before your period, most women have to wait for an average of two weeks from the time they ovulate for a positive home pregnancy test result.
Home pregnancy tests measure levels of human chorionic gonadotropin hCG in your urine. This placenta-produced hormone makes its way into your urine almost immediately after an embryo begins implanting in your uterus, between six to 12 days after fertilization. Some HPTs promise 60 to 75 percent accuracy four to five days before you expect your period. Wait until your period and the rate jumps to 90 percent; wait another week and the results are 99 percent accurate.
Know that false negatives are much more common than false positives, so if the time for your period comes and goes without your monthly flow, check in with your health care provider. What to Expect follows strict reporting guidelines and uses only credible sources, such as peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions and highly respected health organizations. Learn how we keep our content accurate and up-to-date by reading our medical review and editorial policy.
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Could you be pregnant? Look out for these early pregnancy symptoms. Some of these first signs of pregnancy can show up before you even miss your period. Back to Top. In This Article. Continue Reading Below. Read This Next. This is often called implantation bleeding because doctors believe it occurs as the fertilized egg attaches or implants itself into the uterine lining.
Implantation bleeding typically occurs 10 to 14 days after conception, which is just before or right around the time your period is due. But implantation bleeding is a light flow, which may start and stop over a couple days. Your period, on the other hand, may start off light in flow and in color but after a couple days becomes heavier, changes to a crimson red color and lasts up to a week or so. While cramps and lower-abdominal pain can signal a coming period, they can also be a sign of egg implantation.
Implantation cramps can occur with or without spotting or bleeding, and may feel different from period cramps. For example, you might feel mild to moderate prickling, pulling or tingling that comes and goes over a few days.
But menstrual cramps can often feel like a throbbing or dull ache, and typically start a day or two before your period. Of course, you could be running hot for other reasons, but if it lasts more than a few weeks, pregnancy may be the explanation. This change in hormones can contribute to many symptoms, including breast tenderness.
Oftentimes, increased breast tenderness, swelling or tingling start to become noticeable a few days before a missed period. You may also experience nipple soreness. In fact, fatigue may set in as soon as one week after conception. This is thanks to those sudden changes in hormone levels, particularly increasing progesterone. Certainly, your drinking habits play a big role in how many times you pee in a day.
However, pregnancy increases the amount of blood in your body, which gives your kidneys more fluid to filter and more waste to get rid of. When there is a rise in BBT, it can indicate that ovulation has occurred. If you had sex around the time of ovulation, pregnancy is more likely to take place. People who track BBT also look for a temperature dip around the time of implantation, as well as a second rise in temperature that happens around one week after ovulation.
Both of these can happen normally, or can be signs of pregnancy. Pee-on-a-stick POAS pregnancy tests detect pregnancy by the amount of hCG human chorionic gonadotropin hormone levels in your urine. This hormone is present and begins growing at the time of implantation, which is days after ovulation.
Different POAS pregnancy tests have different levels of sensitivity. Some tests can detect as little as 10 mIU hCG in your urine. The earlier you take a pregnancy test, the less reliable the results. While you may get a positive POAS test at 3 weeks, it's a good idea to wait a week or two and test again to confirm.
A blood test also can detect hCG and is more sensitive than a urine test. The downfall is that most doctors will not order a blood test this early to determine pregnancy unless there is a medical reason to do so. Traditional ultrasound wand placed on lower abdomen and transverse ultrasound wand placed inside the vagina can detect a gestational sac about one week earlier than it can show a fetus baby. Transverse ultrasound is used when the gestational sac or baby cannot yet be seen using the traditional ultrasound.
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List of Partners vendors. While some pregnancy symptoms start very early, most of the time, you won't notice anything right away. Anything that happens immediately after having sex, like spotting or increased discharge, is usually not related to pregnancy.
Other than a missed period, pregnancy symptoms tend to really kick in around week five or six of pregnancy. Symptoms tend to develop abruptly. This is about two weeks from when you missed your last period six weeks since you actually had a period. Occasionally you will hear of someone who has symptoms right around their first missed period. Regardless of your feelings about a possible pregnancy, it can be easy to ascribe any sensations to pregnancy symptoms. Keep in mind, premenstrual syndrome PMS symptoms and those of early pregnancy can be similar.
Having symptoms a day or two after having sex is usually not a sign of pregnancy. Here are some things to consider as you try to determine if you're pregnant. Watch all episodes of our Stay Calm Mom video series and follow along as our host Tiffany Small talks to a diverse group of women and top doctors to get real answers to the biggest pregnancy questions.