Regular cycles are anywhere from 25 to 35 days long from the beginning of one period to the beginning of the next. And it's normal for your cycles to vary slightly, like one month your cycle might be 30 days long, and the next one it might be 32 days long, and that's a normal variance. But if the day comes when your period should have started and it hasn't, give it a couple of days, especially if you've varied a few days in the past from month to month. But if several days have gone by and you really should have started your period and it hasn't started, then you should either rule out or confirm pregnancy as the cause by taking a home pregnancy test, because the first sign of pregnancy is actually a missed period. So that leaves a lot of women wondering when they should take a pregnancy test if they don't have regular periods.
Here's some information about how home pregnancy tests work. They detect a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (or HCG) in the urine, and levels rise exponentially during pregnancy, and peak out between 8 to 11 weeks gestation, and then fall back down to a pretty consistent level for the rest of the pregnancy. But HCG levels aren't elevated enough in the urine until about 2 weeks after conception for them to be detected by a home pregnancy test, so if you conceived and then you took a test a week later, then you would likely get a falsely negative result, because your pregnant, but HCG levels aren't high enough yet to actually detect the pregnancy.
So if you had a sexual encounter where you think you may have gotten pregnant, then wait at least 2 weeks before you take a pregnancy test. And if that first result is negative, wait one more week and take another one. And if you're seeing negative results after the time when you had unprotected intercourse, then pregnancy isn't likely. Now if you're sexually active on a regular basis, you may just be wondering if you need to take a test every week. And I would say that you should just test if you start having symptoms of pregnancy or you're experiencing something that's abnormal to you. 90% of women are feeling nauseated by about 8 to 9 weeks gestation, and some women are vomiting, some aren't. So if you're starting to feel that, or you have unusual breast tenderness, food aversions, food cravings, frequent urination, headaches, an abnormal level of fatigue - of course these things can all be caused by other things, but if this is becoming a new norm for you, then you should take a home pregnancy test, again, to either rule out or confirm pregnancy as the cause for your symptoms. By the time you're having symptoms of pregnancy, a home pregnancy test will definitely be positive, so if you get a negative result and these symptoms persist or get worse, then you should talk with a doctor who can determine what they're due to and then tell you if treatment is necessary.
If you're having irregular periods and you want to have a baby, talk with your doctor about it, because when you're having irregular cycles, it's really hard to know when and even if you're ovulating at all. And so a doctor can determine if there's an underlying cause behind it all that can be addressed so that you can begin having regular cycles, you can ovulate, know when you're ovulating (or about the time when you're ovulating), and time intercourse with ovulation so you have a chance at getting pregnant. Good luck with everything, and if you have more questions for me in the future, feel free to ask them on our Facebook page at [ Ссылка ], and recommend us to your friends and family too.
