Can You Measure hCG Levels in Your Urine?

Currently, the vast majority of pregnancy tests are designed to tell you if there is hCG detected in your urine. This is given as a positive, yes there is hCG present, or negative, no hCG is not present. Though various pregnancy tests measure different amounts of hCG in each test. These numbers can vary incredibly widely from about 25 ​miu/ml to 500+ miu/ml of hCG. Just for reference, above 5 miu in blood is considered a positive pregnancy test in many labs. So what do you know about testing hCG levels at home?

That's where the Detect5 Progressive Pregnancy Test comes in. This test can give you a range of where your hCG is via urine sampling without having to leave your house. So it will tell you if your urine hCG levels are at the following thresholds: 25 miu/ml, 100 miu/ml, 500 miu/ml, 2,000 miu/ml and 10,000 miu/ml. This is certainly a huge advance for pregnancy test technology.

This is still not to the level of a blood test for pregnancy but is a step in the right direction. We know that hCG follows a fairly predictable path in early pregnancy. We know that when you stray too far from that path that something isn't normal - not necessarily wrong, just not normal. It certainly may be an indicator that you're about to have a miscarriage, it could also be an indicator that you have more than one baby in your uterus - twins! Being able to screen for this at home puts a certain amount of information in your hands. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure we really know yet.

Certainly, for some women, the information will come in handy as they work towards getting pregnant and monitoring that pregnancy. Will that lead to more stress? More frantic calls to the doctor or midwife because of misread tests or misunderstood signs? Will it mean that the woman is less likely to seek early prenatal care because she thinks that the test has given her good information for staying home?

This test is certainly not the end of the discussion, but rather, the beginning. You can only imagine what people had to say when the first pregnancy tests hit the store shelves. I can almost hear the questions now. And yet today, not 50 years later, we do not even question the existence of the home pregnancy test.