There are some symptoms that make you suspect a pregnancy. There are internet pages that have compiled this information and offer questionnaires in the form of an online pregnancy test. Are your results reliable?
In the information age in which we live, it is common to find web pages that guide the diagnosis of some diseases. In the same way, there are online sites that offer questionnaires that are somewhat useful to find out if there is a possibility of presenting any condition: such is the case of the pregnancy test. online.
These tools are usually free and They are based on the recognition of early symptoms that frequently appear in pregnant women. Therefore, they are not considered reliable detection methods and there is no scientific backing to support them.
What is an online pregnancy test like?
Various pages offer questionnaires that seek to recognize the classic symptoms of a pregnancy in its early stages. The way in which they collect the information varies, but generally they have selection questions, in which the woman has the possibility of choosing the option that is most similar to what she is feeling.
In this way, the questionnaire serves as a checklist on the manifestations suggestive of being pregnant. However, these symptoms do not appear in all women, nor in all pregnancies. Therefore, the presence or absence does not confirm or rule out the existence of a pregnancy.
Online Test Reliability
The information that handles this type of pages has a statistical basis. The symptoms that it investigates are part of a group of clinical manifestations that are common in many pregnant women. This statistical analysis allows presumptive detection at early stages.
The above implies that the results obtained from the pregnancy test online they only have an indicative approach. For this reason, the recommendation is that, despite the response offered by this type of questionnaire, the woman undergoes a laboratory test or an ultrasound to provide certainty.
What symptoms is the online pregnancy test based on?
This type of page determines the possibility of being pregnant by reviewing a set of symptoms described in the literature as early manifestations of pregnancy. The more symptoms a woman has, the more likely she is to be pregnant..
Fundamental question: amenorrhea
The main reason why a pregnancy is suspected lies in the absence of the perioda situation known as amenorrhea. It is of vital importance that the evaluation of the disappearance of the period is done in women who have regular menstrual cycles and who have not used any type of hormonal contraceptive recently.
Likewise, the number of days late should also be considered, since some stressful situations affect the menstrual cycle. In addition, a history of uterine curettage can lead to the suspension of menstruation, since it leads to a delay in the proliferation of the endometrium.
On the contrary, the presence of bleeding is not enough to rule out the existence of a pregnancy. This is because a slight discharge may appear in the first few weeks, which could be confused with menstruation. This bleeding is the result of the implantation process of the product of conception in the uterus.
The first changes that are expected in pregnancy
There are some subtle manifestations that can go unnoticed, but whose presence is considered presumptive of a pregnancy. Among them is the change in coloration of the genitals, which stop having a pink tone to become a little more purple. This finding is known as Chadwick’s sign.
In addition, a pregnant woman may experience a greater tendency to irritability, tiredness and sleepiness. But these changes are sometimes difficult for the patient herself to recognize and a review of them may be unsuccessful.
Despite this, they are often addressed in the online pregnancy test.
The previous difficulty reduces the reliability of this type of questionnaire a little more. A negative response to a manifestation that is actually present may give a false result in a woman who is pregnant.
Popular symptoms: the strong point of the online pregnancy test
Frequently, the questionnaires available on various pages address a group of symptoms that are considered characteristic of a pregnant woman for the general population. Especially during the first weeks of pregnancy.
Among these manifestations are the following:
- Presence of vertigo and headache.
- Increased sensitivity in the breasts.
- nausea and vomitingwhich are usually morning.
- Rejection of certain smells or flavors, which did not used to produce that unpleasantness before.
- Attraction to some specific foods, a situation popularly known as whim.
- Increased need to urinate. Urinations are more frequent, but are usually small.
This list should be reviewed with caution, since although they are popular symptoms, their absence does not rule out pregnancy. His presence does not confirm it either.
This is because none of them is exclusive to pregnancy. However, they are usually present in the early stages of pregnancy for many women.
To trust or not to trust: the weakness of evidence
An important issue that none of these pregnancy tests consider is the variability of symptoms., since they are assumed to be frequent. And the reality is that each of them differs from the other in terms of their frequency of appearance.
Even so, most of these pages warn that their results are not accurate.
On the other hand, nor are some characteristics that are specific to each woman taken into account. These usually affect the early manifestations of pregnancy, making it a little more difficult to interpret the results of a pregnancy test. online.
Among these features that add to the weakness of the online test are the following:
- Age of the woman.
- Previous pregnancies.
- Physical and nutritional state.
- Regularity of menstrual cycles.
Usefulness of the pregnancy test online
Despite the limitations, these tools do have the capacity to help those women with initial doubts. It allows them to review the most common early manifestations of pregnancy and gives them some insight into those symptoms.
The caveat of this type of questionnaire lies in the need to confirm its results later. Either through the detection of human chorionic gonadotropin in the blood or by performing an obstetric ultrasound, it is pertinent to go for confirmation. In the same way, a pregnancy test online it should not replace prenatal assessment.
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All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography for this article was deemed reliable and of scholarly or scientific accuracy.
- Almira, AG (2008). Pregnancy: diagnosis, gestational age and date of delivery. Medicine, 12(4).
- Carrillo, P., García, A., Soto, M., Rodríguez, G., Pérez, J., Martínez, D. (2021). Physiological changes during normal pregnancy. Magazine of the Faculty of Medicine (Mexico). 64 (1).
- Cunningham, F., Leveno, K., Bloom, S., Dashe, J., Hoffman, B., Casey, B., Spong, C. (2018). Williams. Obstetricia. McGraw Hill Education. Twenty-fifth edition.