Early Home Pregnancy Test

The first home pregnancy test was invented in the year 1978. This was know as the earliest pregnancy test or EPT. This test became famous in those days as the only earliest home pregnancy tests available. But the tests were very tedious in those days.

There were debates about the sensitivity of the home pregnancy tests. The earliest Pregnancy tests were able to detect the pregnancy a early as the fertilized egg attaches itself with the uterine wall. At this time of pregnancy, the hCG levels in the blood was found to be 6.5mIU which is a very low amount. The next pregnancy test had a sensitivity of 25mIU hCG. These two pregnancy tests were considered to be good in terms of the providing the information about pregnancy during the days of missed periods. The next best pregnancy test had the worst sensitivity of 100mIU which was far from the 25mIU and 6.5mIU level of hCG. The EPT had a success rate of 97% and also had a failure of 80%.

Usage of EPT

The EPT consists of a test tube, a vial purified water, and the sheep blood cells. The test tube is made to fix in a plastic stand. Once the test is performed with the urine, the results are identified by fixing the test tube in a fixed stand and looking through it from a angled mirror. If a dark ring is visible in the test tube, then it shows that the women is pregnant. This black ring was latter on replaced with the blue ring. The test lasts for nearly two hours and the results has to be interpreted correctly by the user. Since there are chances that the dark ring becomes very light, there happens cases where the user is not able to conclude if she is pregnant or not. More over the user has to be extremely careful while performing the test. A slight change in the procedure in the test may lead to a drastic change in the results.

History of Home pregnancy tests

In days back in 1978, EPT was considered a very good option of home pregnancy test. But the women are even not able to believe that they had to wait for more than two hours in order to complete the test. Thus as days passed upon more and researches where carried over in the field of pregnancy tests. Currently the time taken to complete the test is around two to three minutes. Moreover the sensitivity of the test has also been improved. Now there are costly tests which can detect the pregnancy even with 6.5mIU of hCG hormones.