The longer you wait after implantation, the higher your hCG levels will be. The more pregnancy hormone present in your urine, the darker the line you will see on your pregnancy test. Once you have a positive pregnancy test, you can work out your estimated due date with BellyBelly's Due Date Calculator.
In general, yes, pregnancy test results should get darker early on as a pregnancy progresses. This is because the pregnancy hormone, hCG, typically doubles every two to three days during the first few weeks of pregnancy. After six weeks, the levels will double about every four days.
Any positive line, no matter how faint, means your result is pregnant. Levels of hCG in your body will increase over the course of your pregnancy. If you test early, your hCG levels may be still be low and you'll see a faint positive line.
The darker line is usually the control line. Sometimes this second line is so faint, you can barely see it. If there is a line, not an evaporation line, but a true line, no matter how light, you should read that as a positive pregnancy test.
If you get a positive test, especially a really dark positive, days before your period is even due, that may be one of the early signs of twins! The more babies you're carrying, the higher and faster your human chorionic gonadotropin hormone (hCG) rises.
So even though some people swear that a darker line on a pregnancy test means more hCG which means twins, that's not the case. Only an hCG blood test, like the one done at your doctor's office, can provide a look at the levels of hCG in your body at a given point in time.
Background: Maternal serum HCG (MSHCG) is higher when the fetus is a female than when it is male. This has been demonstrated in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, and recently at 10-14 weeks gestation.
The most common reason for a darker test line is a positive pregnancy. A pregnant woman contains a hCG hormone which is detected by the test strip and if the hormone is in high concentration, the test line would be darker than the control line.
However, you don't need to stress too much about taking a pregnancy test at a specific time of day. Using urine later on when it's less concentrated may only “hypothetically delay a positive result by only 12 to 24 hours,” advises Dr. Flanagan.
Faint line on pregnancy test not getting darker
It's assumed the line will darken because hCG levels increase during early pregnancy. The strength of the positive test line depends on the amount of hCG in your urine. Wait until your first missed period if you want a darker test strip.
What Are the Signs Of a Chemical Pregnancy? While it can be difficult to know whether you've experienced a chemical pregnancy, signs include: Experiencing a heavier, more intense period with more intense cramping about a week later than usual. Having a positive pregnancy test then getting your period.
3 weeks is usually too early to take a test if you want the most accurate result. Some women, however, will get a positive result by the end of this week. Although you might be desperate to find out, if you think you could be pregnant it's best to wait until next week.
Therefore, when you have an ectopic pregnancy, you still have signs of pregnancy and the test still shows 2 lines. However, beta HCG levels will increase slowly, so the next test will be darker, and HCG will only decrease when it is a degenerative ectopic pregnancy.
Testing Too Early
Or, there might be just enough hCG to cause a slight reaction, leading to a faint line on the pregnancy test. One way to increase your chance of a clear positive in early pregnancy is to use your first morning urine, doing the test as soon as you wake up.
In a twin pregnancy, there are elevated levels of hCG, making it possible to have a very early positive result. However, home pregnancy tests won't confirm if twins are present, only the presence of hCG. It takes around 2 weeks after conception for hCG to be detected in a hCG pregnancy test.
The reason doctors still use the last menstrual cycle as a benchmark is because it is difficult to know exactly when the sperm fertilized the egg. So when doctors say a woman is six weeks pregnant, it typically means the embryo started developing about four weeks ago.
Home pregnancy tests work by detecting the level of hCG in your urine, so it all depends on how high those levels are at 4 weeks pregnant. Your body typically starts producing hCG about 10 days after conception, so it's possible to get a positive or negative test at 4 weeks pregnant.
Why is my test line darker than the control line? When your test line is darker than the control line, it means that your HCG hormone levels are high enough to steal dye from the control line. Remember, this is called a dye stealer test.
The range for singletons is 5 – 397 and for twins it is 48 – 683. As you can see, there is a big overlap between the first hCG level in singleton and twins. What this means is that even if you have a first hCG level of 397, it could be a singleton pregnancy.
It can be tempting to try remedies or foods that purportedly help raise your hCG levels. Unfortunately, there's no way to change your hCG levels or make them go up. What's more, hCG levels reflect information about your pregnancy, but changing them wouldn't address the cause of any potential problems.
The hCG levels in female-bearing pregnancies increase significantly, whereas they decrease in male-bearing pregnancies [1–3].
RESULTS: The median free β-human chorionic gonadotropin and pregnancy-associated plasma protein A levels in cases of Down syndrome was 2.09 (95% confidence interval 1.69 to 2.62) and 0.405 multiples of the median (95% confidence interval 0.28 to 0.67), respectively.
“Higher hCG levels can be an indicator of a twin pregnancy, but it's not conclusive evidence,” Dr. Garg says. “Two placentas in twin pregnancies produce more hCG in comparison to the single placenta in a singleton pregnancy.” So, one explanation for a higher-than-average hCG level could be a normal twin pregnancy.