If you feel as though you’re pregnant but got a negative home pregnancy test result, your symptoms could be down to premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or you may have taken the test too early.
Can a pregnancy test be wrong?
It is possible to get a false negative on a pregnancy test (where the test says you're not pregnant, even though you are), particularly if you've tested before your period is due. If you've just had one negative result, you could try waiting for a few days and testing again, just to be sure.
Could there be another reason for my symptoms?
If you've waited until after your period was due, and multiple tests have come up negative, it's unlikely that you're pregnant. There's probably another explanation for the symptoms you're experiencing, such as premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Read on to find out what could make you feel pregnant when you're not.
How accurate are pregnancy tests?
Midwife Caron Cooch explains how soon after a missed period you can take a pregnancy test and how to do it properly.More getting pregnant videos
Here are some of the most common pregnancy symptoms, with other possible reasons you might feel them:
Missed period
Your period could be late for a number of reasons, including stress, being over- or under-weight, or polycystic ovary syndrome. Learn more about what causes late periods and when to see your GP.
Tender breasts
If your breasts are more sensitive than usual, this could be a sign of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Many women find their breasts become a little tender before their period arrives. If you're trying to conceive, it's only natural to pay extra attention to how your body is feeling, so you may notice this tenderness more than usual.
Less commonly, sore breasts can be a sign of a condition such as mastitis (which can happen even if you're not breastfeeding). If the pain is very bad, your breast looks red or swollen, or you also have a temperature, see your GP.
Cramps or bloating
As with tender breasts, tummy cramps or bloating can also be a sign that your period is on its way. If it lasts beyond your period, it could be a sign of illness, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). See your GP if the pain is getting worse, keeps coming back, or is accompanied by other symptoms, such as bleeding, discharge, or pain when using the toilet.
Fatigue
Tiredness is yet another classic PMS syndrome. It can also be associated with depression or anxiety – both common among people who are trying to conceive. If you're suffering from low mood, your GP can help.
Some medical conditions can also cause extreme tiredness, such as anaemia (iron deficiency), diabetes, or an underactive thyroid. If you're feeling tired all the time, and getting plenty of rest and sleep doesn't help, see your GP.
Morning sickness
Nausea and vomiting could be due to a simple tummy bug, usually caused by either food poisoning or a virus. If so, it should get better on its own within a few days. In the meantime, call in sick to work, and be sure to keep your fluids up to avoid dehydration. If you're still vomiting after two days, see your GP.
Frequent urination
Women in the early stages of pregnancy often need to wee more often, due to pregnancy hormones. However, it can also happen if you have a condition such as a urinary tract infection (UTI) or diabetes. If you're finding that you need to wee more often than usual, see your GP.
If you've been trying to conceive for a while without success, it may be worth seeing your GP for a fertility check-up. If you're 35 or younger, you and your partner can usually get fertility tests if you've been trying for at least a year. If you're over 35, see your GP sooner than this – they may offer tests after about six months of trying.
More information:
- Read our expert tips on how to cope with not conceiving.
- Learn more about how to get a fertility test.
- Find out what a faint line on a pregnancy test really means.
Polly Logan-Banks is an experienced editor with a keen interest in producing evidence-based content. Polly is passionate about ensuring that every child gets the best start in life.
Visit the News Hub Test results later in pregnancy may be misleading Pregnancy tests can sometimes give a false negative result to women several weeks into their pregnancies, according to research by Ann Gronowski, PhD, a professor of pathology and immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Her findings
led the FDA to change its standards for evaluating new pregnancy tests, but old tests with the false-negative problem are still on the market. Each year, women in the U.S. rely on some 20 million home pregnancy tests to learn potentially life-altering news. Despite marketing claims that such tests are 99 percent accurate, research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis over the past decade has shown that up to 5 percent of pregnancy tests return results indicating a woman is not pregnant when, in reality, she is.
Gronowski
Makers of pregnancy tests advise that tests taken in the first week or two after conception could be inaccurate because pregnancy hormones may not have risen high enough to be detected. But Ann Gronowski, PhD, a professor of pathology and immunology, and of obstetrics and gynecology, and medical director of core laboratory services at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, discovered that pregnancy tests can also give incorrect results to women five weeks or more into their pregnancies, when hormone levels tend to be very high. She published the first paper describing this problem in 2009, and since then has continued studying and raising the alarm on this serious but under-recognized issue. Recently, she and colleagues published a paper in the journal Clinical Chemistry, in which they evaluated how likely several pregnancy devices were to give false negative results.
Q: How did you discover that some pregnancy tests produce false negative results?
About a decade ago, a woman came to the emergency department saying she was pregnant and was experiencing cramping and spotting – which can be signs of miscarriage – but the pregnancy test we gave her at the hospital came back negative. She was certain she was pregnant, so we performed a blood test and an ultrasound, both of which confirmed she was pregnant. Shortly afterward, we had a similar experience with a second patient, and at about the same time a colleague at Vanderbilt University called me with a similar observation. So we started investigating, and we published a paper describing the problem and its cause.
Q: Why do pregnancy tests sometimes return false negative results?
We use a kind of pregnancy test in the emergency department that is similar to what you can buy at a drugstore. These tests detect a pregnancy hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in a urine sample. One antibody captures the hormone in the urine, and the other serves as a signal. It has a color that becomes visible when it detects the correct hormone. That’s the second blue or pink line you see on a test, and it indicates a positive result (the first line is just there to show the device is working properly).
But a degraded form of the hormone also can be found in the urine, and in some devices the first antibody will bind to the degraded form. The amount of the degraded form, called hCG core fragment, goes up as pregnancy progresses. The more of the fragmented hormone that is around, the more likely the first antibody will accidentally capture the fragment instead of the intact hormone. However, the signal antibody does not respond to the fragment so it does not change color when that happens, and therefore you get a negative result even though the hormone might be present.
Q: How common is this problem?
It depends on the device. They all use different antibodies, and some are better at discriminating the full hormone from the fragment than others. We looked at 11 of the most commonly used hospital pregnancy tests to see if they were susceptible to false negatives when levels of the hormone fragment were high. Seven were somewhat susceptible, two were highly susceptible, and only two tests were not susceptible. The worst one gave false negatives in 5 percent of the urine samples of pregnant women tested. That was, unfortunately, the test we were using when that initial patient came in. Based on our research, we have switched to a test that does not have this false-negative problem.
Q: Are the makers of pregnancy tests doing anything to solve this problem?
Based on our work, the Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged the need for pregnancy tests that are not susceptible to false negatives. The FDA requires that all new tests generate a positive signal even when concentrations of the fragmented hormone are high. Unfortunately, this requirement does not apply to tests that were already FDA-approved.
Q: What can women do if they think they received a false negative on a pregnancy test?
What’s interesting is that some women discovered our research and have been posting in online pregnancy forums, saying that if you think you’re pregnant but the test comes back negative, dilute the urine with water and try again because sometimes the tests are wrong. And that can actually work. Dilution reduces levels of the hormone fragment enough that the first antibody is more likely to detect the intact hormone again. But I do not recommend this. The best test to detect pregnancy is a blood test. If there’s any doubt, I would recommend women talk to their physicians and request blood tests.