First Response Pregnancy Test

The average pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks, divided into 3 trimesters. The first trimester starts with week 1 and ends with week 12. Week 1 is the week in which menstruation takes place. It is not until week 2 that your egg can actually be fertilized. By the third week, the sperm would have met the egg in the fallopian tube and the conceiving process begins. During the fourth week, the egg will start travelling towards, and eventually implant itself in the uterus walls.

It is in these weeks (the third and fourth) that your body will begin producing a certain hormone called the human chorionic gonadotropin hormone – hCG in short. The hCG hormone’s main function is to produce progesterone – another hormone that will cause capillaries and blood vessels to form in a thick lining along the uterus. This will help with sustaining the weight of the growing fetus. Also, hCG will stop your immune system from seeing the fetus as an intruder and attack it. Read more about pregnancy hormones.

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As any hormone, the hCG hormone travels through the blood system. It is actually the hormone that the First Response pregnancy test will be looking for. Its presence and levels in the bloodstream can point out to a possible pregnancy. But you will not need a blood sample in order to test this. Soon after the hCG hormone enters the bloodstream, it will end up in your urine as well. Most pregnancy tests involve you keeping them under the stream of urine for a few seconds then waiting for the result.

The regular pregnancy test will use a monoclonal antibody to determine the presence and levels of hCG in your urine. These tests can vary in accuracy due to their sensibility towards these levels of hCG – the thresholds can vary from 20 to 100 mIU/ml - the lower the threshold, the higher the accuracy.

The First Response pregnancy test is supposed to accurately measure hCG levels in your urine and determine whether you are pregnant or not. It does this on an average of 6 days before you even reach your first missed period. If you had your last period on the 1st of the month, then you should have the next one around the 28th. Conception has occurred somewhere between the 14th and the 24th of the month. So, it means that there are high chances that the hCG hormone will already be present in your urine for the test to detect.

The First Response pregnancy test is said to be 62% accurate if it is done 6 days prior to your expected missed period. Laboratory tests however show a 99% accuracy of the test.

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