# Home Pregnancy Tests

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-pregnancy-tests/110021>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 21, 2002, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-pregnancy-tests/110021 "2002-05-21T00:53:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Essured](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Essured](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Essured)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-pregnancy-tests/110021/1 "2002-05-21T00:53:22Z")

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Are home pregnancy tests as accurate as the one your doctor uses ?

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**Author:** ![leechbabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7cd45c/32.png) [@leechbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leechbabe)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-pregnancy-tests/110021/2 "2002-05-21T01:02:22Z")

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Depends on the type of pregnancy test the Doctor is doing.

If it is the one where you pee into a bottle and they drop some of the urine onto a stick. Then that is exactly the same as a home preg. test.

If however they then send the urine off to pathology to be analysed it is far more accurate.

When i was working at a General Practice we just bought in bulk your standard home preg. test kit.

- funny story from a friend on this matter. She used to work at Safeway and one day they found a **used** preg. test left behind in the store. Complete with jam jar of specimen. Gross. Fortunatly it was negative - as my friend said “people like that shouldn’t be allowed to breed”. 🙂

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**Author:** ![DarkWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@DarkWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarkWriter)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-pregnancy-tests/110021/3 "2002-05-21T01:04:15Z")

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I’ve found home pregnancy tests to be very accurate. Always turned up positive before I was pregnant, negative when I wasn’t.

As long as you follow the instructions, they’re pretty accurate.

Sheri

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**Author:** ![DarkWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@DarkWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarkWriter)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-pregnancy-tests/110021/4 "2002-05-21T01:17:48Z")

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Of course I meant to say _when_ I was pregnant, not before.

Sheri