You can only find out your exact hCG levels with a blood test, and the only reason you ever need to check your hCG levels is to confirm that you are actually pregnant. Unless you have pregnancy complications, you will never need to check your hCG levels again. You will then have a follow-up blood test around 48 to 72 hours later to check if your hCG levels are on the rise. Normal hCG levels vary widely among women, but healthcare practitioners still use the measurement as an indicator of approximate gestational age.
In a healthy pregnancy, hCG levels will increase at least 50 percent every 48 hours, though it is more common for them to double every 48 hours. They typically peak at around 10 weeks. See below for the range of expected levels.
Low hCG levels can simply be a sign of a very early pregnancy , but if they fail to increase a few days later, they could suggest an ectopic pregnancy. The table below gives you a guideline as to the normal wide range of hCG levels in each week of pregnancy. This is the reason why pregnancy symptoms can be greater in the first trimester and ease off after this time for many women.
In early pregnancy, hCG levels usually double every two to three days. If they start off more slowly, the increase ends up happening much quicker. If your hCG levels fall below the normal range, your doctor may want you to have a blood test every two to three days to ensure the levels are increasing. A single measurement of your hCG level is not useful. To give an accurate indication, a series of hCG blood tests needs to be taken a couple of days apart and the readings compared.
There is often variation with a rapid increase in numbers, especially in the first few weeks of pregnancy. Many women have gone on to have healthy pregnancies and babies with low hCG levels. Typically, the gestational age of your baby is calculated by the date of your last menstruation.
This can be easily miscalculated, particularly if you have a history of irregular periods or are unsure of your dates. An ultrasound and further hCG tests can be used to calculate the gestational age correctly. This is usually the first step when low hCG levels are detected.
A miscarriage is a pregnancy loss that occurs before 20 weeks of gestation. Sometimes low hCG levels can indicate that you have had or will have a miscarriage. If the pregnancy fails to develop a placenta, then the levels may be normal initially but fail to rise. Common signs that you are experiencing a miscarriage are:. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Human chorionic gonadotropin , or hCG, is a hormone produced during pregnancy in the cells of the placenta.
Especially in early pregnancy, the amount of hCG present in the mother's body rises rapidly. It is also found in the blood as early as 11 days after conception, and when a physician wants to confirm a woman's pregnancy, he or she will often order one or more quantitative hCG blood tests. It is important to note that any single hCG test in early pregnancy does not tell much about the health of a pregnancy or fetus because individual women have a wide variation in hCG levels, and even one woman may experience wide variation in hCG numbers from one pregnancy to the next.
Rather, physicians look at the trend in the number among two or more tests. The hCG doubling time, over two separate blood tests spread over a period of days, usually provides more useful information than a single hCG level when evaluating a pregnancy. In most cases, the number will double over a period of 48 to 72 hours. Remember that these ranges are based on the length of the pregnancy dated from the last menstrual period.
Any woman with abnormal cycles may see variation in these ranges. For example, a woman with six-week menstrual cycles should fall roughly in the same range as a woman with four-week menstrual cycles.
In other words, at eight weeks after her last menstrual period she should fall roughly in the same range as a woman with four-week menstrual cycles would at four weeks. It's worth knowing that non-pregnant women and healthy men also have low levels of hCG.
Your hCG levels start to increase rapidly as soon as a fertilized egg implants in your uterus. This usually happens about 10 days after conception. You may, however, experience implantation bleeding when the fertilized egg attaches to the lining of the uterus. This is normal and may resemble spotting or a light period. All over-the-counter pregnancy tests work a little differently, so you should check the instructions in or on the box.
Keep in mind that hCG levels increase over time, so pregnancy tests are more accurate as time goes on. You might try taking a pregnancy test about three to four weeks after the first day of your period, as this is when the levels of hCG in your urine will have increased enough to be detected.
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