There's a faint line on my pregnancy test

If you can see a faint line on your pregnancy test there are only really two possibilities.

The first is that you are pregnant and either the test you are using is not very sensitive (and therefore not picking up enough of the pregnancy hormone to give a strong reading) or you are only in the very early stages of pregnancy. If this happens, you should retest again a few days later and see if the line is stronger.

The second possibility is that the egg is not able to establish itself in the uterus after fertilisation and a very early miscarriage will occur. Often this indicates that there was a problem with the implanted egg and thiss is nature’s way of dealing with it. It's veery ccommon. Up to half of all conceptions do not become established pregnancies. If you retest in a few days you will probably have a negative result.

A quick poll around the gurgle office, showed that most of us tried more than one pregnancy test to find out we were pregnant, sometimes from disbelief, sometimes because we failed to read the instructions and did the test inaccurately. Watch our video on Home Pregnancy Testing so you can get it right the first time, but here's a quick reminder:

• Read the instructions first - all tests vary
  

• Most tests ask you to hold the test stick in your flow of urine for five seconds.
  

• For best results test in the morning with your first wee of the day as your urine is more concentrated and not affected by what you have drunk.
  

• The result usually shows up after ten minutes.
  

• If you see a faint line, it may mean that you are pregnant but the HCG levels in your blood are not strong enough yet. Test again in four days.

If you would like to know more about pregnancy tests, you can talk to other mums on the Guide to Pregnancy area of our chat forum.

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