Some women pray for the appearance of pregnancy symptoms. Other women, usually those who want to remain childless, do not want to see any sign of those same pregnancy symptoms. For both groups of women, the detection of pregnancy assumes great importance. For that reason, both groups of women would expect a probable sign of pregnancy to lead to a stroll down a pharmacy aisle and purchase of a home pregnancy kit. Yet the following article will show that such kits, while quite reliable, still have the same fallibility as the original lab test for pregnancy. A woman must be conscious of that fact.
Until the second half of the 20th Century, the detection of obvious pregnancy symptoms remained the only method, short of a birth, that could show that conception had occurred. Even today physicians admit that an awareness of a woman’s cyclic fertility has the ability to help with the detection of pregnancy. A focus on the menstrual cycle can alert a woman about when to watch for either confirmative or suggestive pregnancy symptoms.
Research done during the 1940’s has shown that production of Human Chorionic Growth Hormone (HCG) should count as one of the pregnancy symptoms. Tests for that hormone have added to the observations made by women who were attuned to changes in their menstrual cycle. The production of HCG occurs during the course of events that allow a baby to grow inside of the mother.
The first of those events do not create any changes that could be construed as pregnancy symptoms. The fertilized egg, the zygote reaches the uterus while it is still only the size of a pin head. After the zygote has attached itself to the uterine lining, it then becomes an embryo. As the tiny embryo, rounded at one end, gets longer, a thin envelope called the amnion forms around it.
The amnion serves two functions. It helps to cushion the baby from forces outside of the mother’s body. It also permits the transfer of water and nutrients into the amniotic sac. Once the embryo has grown in the amniotic sac for nine weeks, it becomes a fetus.
Within those same nine weeks a mother might experience various pregnancy symptoms. She might note changes in her milk glands, changes caused by the production of progesterone and estrogen. She might note that her breasts feel somewhat tender. When a woman observes such changes, she has good reason to suspect that a placenta inside of her is producing HCG.
After the embryo becomes a fetus and increases in size, a mother typically feels a pressure on her bladder. She will then feel a more frequent urge to urinate. Later, as the pregnancy advances, the mother will experience other pregnancy symptoms. The shape of the mother’s body changes, thus pulling-on and stretching her skin. The bulging of her abdomen is one of the best-recognized signs of pregnancy. The accompanying position shift by her inner organs goes largely unnoticed.
In certain cases, any of the typical signs of pregnancy could go unnoticed. A woman could have such well-developed abdominal muscles that her protruding abdomen would not show up until she was well into the pregnancy. Even a lab test for HCG has been known to give a false negative result. Documentation of that occurrence would underline the need for care in the taking of a home pregnancy test.