hey everyone its air thread sterner
sorry and calm and today I want to show
you how to take or administer a
pregnancy test so what does this test
measure well it's going to look for a
hormone in your urine called HCG and HCG
stands for human chorionic gonadotropin
which is why we call it HCG and this is
a hormone produced by the placenta so if
this hormone is present in your urine
it's possibly saying that during your
cycle you release an egg a sperm
fertilize the egg the egg traveled down
and planted itself in the uterus and you
are growing a baby so when should you
take a pregnancy test well generally
speaking you want to wait until you have
missed your period by there are some
tests on the market that say they can
detect it a little bit earlier but
always just read the instructions of
whatever type of test you are using now
with these tests they will display
results differently depending on the
brand some will display it
electronically others you will have to
manually read it like with this one and
generally speaking as well whenever you
want to take the pregnancy test is
usually in the morning time whenever
your urine is highly concentrated with
the HCG what supplies will you need to
take a pregnancy test well of course
we'll need the pregnancy test you'll
need a cup to catch your urine in you'll
need a timer either a watch or your
phone and if you're in a clinical
setting you'll need a pair of gloves now
to actually take the test what you want
to do is you want to wash your hands
then collect the urine specimen by
peeing in a cup and then wash your hands
again so we've collected a urine
specimen and I've put on my gloves but
before we actually do the test let me
explain this test to you whenever you do
a pregnancy test always look at the test
itself because here this area where this
arrows pointing is where we're going to
drop the urine in and this particular
test requires three drops of urine and
then over here you see a C and a T the C
is the control area and you will
definitely get a line
here and this is a good thing because
this is telling you that the test works
and that you added enough urine the tea
part is the test part and if it is
positive
you do have HCG in your urine a line
will pop up here now the darkness of the
line how fast it pops up will vary from
person to person depending on how far
along you are in your pregnancy so read
the manufacturer's results for how long
you need to wait before you read the
test results now we're going to do the
test and what I'm going to do is I'm
going to show you a test that is
positive versus a test that is negative
so you can see the differences here we
have our droppers and they contain our
urine sample we use the droppers that
came with the pregnancy test to withdraw
the urine in this top dropper
we have urine that contains HCG and how
I know that is because it's my urine and
I'm pregnant
this bottom dropper contains urine that
does not have HCG in it it comes from my
husband so he shouldn't have HCG in his
urine so what we're gonna do is we're
gonna add three drops of urine to each
test so we'll add to this top one this
is the urine that has the HCG so one two
three and then we'll drop here one two
three and we're gonna let that go for
three minutes cuz for this particular
test they say to wait three minutes to
read the results but don't read the
results after five minutes because they
won't be valid
you
so it's been three minutes now we're
going to interpret our results so as you
can see here in these tests we have a
line in both of the control areas this
tells us we added enough urine and that
this test is working however in this
pregnancy test here on the top there is
a line in the test area so it's positive
which tells us that it detected HCG in
the urine however here on the bottom
this bottom pregnancy test there is no
line in this test area so it is negative
it tells us that it did not detect HCG
in that urine sample so what do you do
if you get positive results well what
you want to do is call your doctor your
OBGYN family doctor whoever you go to
tell them that you got a positive home
pregnancy test and they'll have you come
in they'll confirm it and then start
with prenatal labs but let's say that
you get a negative result but you still
haven't had your period you don't really
know what's going on what you want to do
is you want to wait a little bit and
retest maybe you test it a little bit
earlier or let's say it's still negative
and you're not getting a positive result
you want to call your doctor who can
further investigate it okay so that
wraps up this demonstration on how to
take a pregnancy test now be sure to
check out my other nursing skills videos
and our maternity review lectures