How Do Pregnancy Tests Work?

Pregnancy tests look for a hormone called Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG).

People often ask how long after sex someone has to wait to take a pregnancy test, so let me explain a little bit about timing and hCG.

If there’s going to be a potential pregnancy, we first need for the sperm to fertilize the egg, which happens in the Fallopian tube. This is called conception. While this can happen pretty soon after sex, it can also take a couple of days.

Once the egg is fertilized we start referring to it as an embryo The embryo starts to make its way to the uterus and begins to implant into the uterine lining. That’s going to cue the body to start to form the placenta, and that’s what triggers the release of hCG.

How long does this take? The at-home test, which is a urine test, isn’t as sensitive to hCG levels as a blood test, and it may take some time for the hCG in the urine to build up to levels that the home test can detect.

This means that the at-home test can detect a pregnancy about 11 days after conception. Read that again- after conception, not sex. So it might be 11 – 14 days after sex.

 The blood test for pregnancy that is done at a doctor’s office or clinic can detect lower levels of hCG, which makes it possible to determine that there is a pregnancy a few days earlier than the at-home test.

Until next time, be safe and have fun!

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