Pregnant?
The answer to this time-honored question once demanded a combination of guesswork, instinct and a doctor’s visit. But a quarter-century ago, the long wait for the outcome became obsolete. Hailed as a “private little revolution,” the first home pregnancy tests hit drugstore shelves then, and today their telltale thin blue or pink lines promise hope or despair for millions of American women.
Becoming widely available nationwide in 1979, the kits transformed how women confirmed their pregnancy results and finally allowed them the privacy they craved for such an intensely personal event. The e.p.t. (The Early Pregnancy Test) from Pfizer was the first to be ap-proved for market by the Food and Drug Administration in 1977. A year later, test kit ads had started appearing in major women’s magazines, including Mademoiselle, McCall’s and Vogue.
Convenient and easy to use, the tests work by identifying the presence of the “pregnancy hormone,” human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), in urine. Today’s most popular kits include indicator sticks that can be dipped in a collection cup of urine or held directly under a urine stream. After two to 10 minutes, a symbol a colored line, a dot, or a plus or minus sign) appears in the screen indicating results.
For previous generations, confirming pregnancy was not so simple.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the phrase “the rabbit died” became a euphemism for a positive pregnancy test. When the urine of a pregnant woman was injected into a female rabbit, bulging masses in the ovaries, called corpora hemorrhagica, formed. These couldn’t be seen without killing the bunny to inspect the ovaries, so every rabbit died, even if the woman wasn’t pregnant.
Thanks to technology, bunnies are no longer sacrificed to confirm a woman’s pregnancy. Good news for the bunnies, as pregnancy and infertility test kits combined are holding steady at $200 million a year in sales, according to AC Nielsen, a market research firm. With the arrival of digital test kits, which are designed to provide better accuracy and more ease of use, sales are expected to rise, test kit manufacturers say.
One reason for the booming business may be that many women often repeat the test.
“I just couldn’t believe that I was pregnant, and I felt it necessary to repeatedly test,” said Marcia Turner, 38, of Fairport, N.Y. On Turner’s first test nearly six years ago, there was only a faint line indicating pregnancy. Although test kit instructions said any line in the window meant the test was positive, she wanted to be sure. So she bought two other brands.
“Even after they came up positive, I still felt I needed reassurance from my ob/gyn, so I went in for a test–probably the same one I was using at home–and they confirmed that, yes, all the tests were correct, I was pregnant,” Turner said.
A 2002 Consumer Search survey found One Step Be Sure (Syntron Bio Research), CVS (CVS Pharmacy), Clear Blue Easy (Unipath Diagnostics) and e.p.t (Parker Davis) were among the top-rated tests for ease in use, sensitivity and accuracy. Test kits cost between $9 and $22.
“I took the test fairly early, so the pink line was very pale, said Chicagoan Liz Sturrock, 29, who took the test about 18 months ago. Because she wanted to be “sure,” Sturrock ended up taking about six tests, including one in the bathroom of the Blue Angel restaurant on North Milwaukee Avenue, while her boyfriend waited in a booth. When she called her gynecologist’s office, the nurse asked whether she had taken a home test.
“I took six,” Sturrock told her.
“You took six? Is this your first?” the nurse said.
“I don’t know what gave it away,” Sturrock said, recalling the conversation.
Playing a role on TV
Even in television land, pregnancy results have played a major role. In 1978, Hawkeye promised not to kill Radar’s pet rabbit while performing a pregnancy test for Hot Lips in an episode of “M*A*S*H.”
Roseanne took the home test in 1990 and Murphy took it 20 times during two episodes of “Murphy Brown” in 1992, which prompted then-Vice President Dan Quayle to question the morals of single mothers nationwide.
In a 1998 “Friends” episode, Phoebe’s brother and his wife bought a pregnancy test for Phoebe to confirm her surrogate motherhood. Three years later, a single Rachel showed her positive test result to her excited friends, Monica and Phoebe.
This year the theme is still going strong as Theresa took the test and stewed over who is the father of her baby on Fox’s “The O.C.”
Kellie Snider, 41, of Irving, Texas, has used the home pregnancy test in several of its stages over the years.
“I used the old-fashioned test-tube pregnancy test when I got pregnant with my first son in 1987,” she said. With that test, a woman collected urine in a cup and poured it into a test tube that had a clump of dry chemicals in the bottom. The tube then was set in a stand while the test-taker waited an hour for a ring to appear in the tube.
Just three years later, Snider used a test in which she dipped a swab stick in a cup of urine.
“A little dot was supposed to turn pink if I was pregnant and stay white if I was not. I couldn’t tell,” she said. Snider bought a second test. It required her to urinate on the indicator stick, which would turn blue if she were pregnant. It did. She was.
A study published this year in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that despite technological advances, most test kit brands detect only 16 percent or fewer pregnancies if they are used as early as recommended (up to four days before a missed period). The study reported only one test, First Response by Scantibodies Laboratory based in California, is sensitive enough to detect more than 95 percent of pregnancies when used early.
Spelling it out
“If one waits a week after the missed period, any home pregnancy test will do,” said Lawrence Cole, study author and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque.
Though they may not be better at early detection, a new generation of digital tests was released last year, including Clear Blue Easy, made by Unipath Diagnostics Inc. In place of a thin blue line, an indicator screen now displays the words “pregnant” or “not pregnant.”
But there are exceptions to every rule.
Nearly three years ago, Laureen Hudson, 36, of Vallejo, Calif., took several home tests that produced negative results.Then she saw her nurse practitioner for both blood and urine tests. Negative again. After two missed periods, breast tenderness and morning sickness, Hudson had an ultrasound to get to the bottom of her problems, as her practitioner suggested “psychosomatic pregnancy.” The ultrasound showed instead the image of her 9-week-old fetus. Hudson’s midwife told her that apparently her body doesn’t produce enough hCG to render a positive pregnancy test result–on any test.
Just out of curiosity, Hudson tried two “new, improved” pregnancy tests much later in her pregnancy. “And wouldn’t you know it? Both still said negative. My midwife was just amused by the whole thing.”
Pregnancy tests as keepsakes
One unexpected boon of the home pregnancy test is that women have used them in pregnancy announcements and as keepsakes in baby books.
“We made up an e-mail to send to family and friends and took pictures of us staring at the test in confusion and asking, `What does it say?’ Then we took a close-up of the test and used a photo-imaging program to write `You’re pregnant, dummy’ in big letters across the stick,” says Gretchen Roberts, 26, of Palo Alto, Calif. “Our friends and family loved it.”
Terrified and yet elated with her positive results, Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt, 40, of Rockville, Md., found a little box, sealed it with a bow, and rushed to present the positive test to her husband. “He thought they were ovulation sticks! It took a while for his brain to accept that, indeed, his sperm were avid swimmers.”
“I put the stick in the calendar I kept during my pregnancy, and it’s still there–still blue and that child is almost 14,” says Kellie Snider, 41, of Irving, Texas.
— Jennifer Nelson.
From test tubes to digital
1978: e.p.t. arrived on scene. Results took two hours and the kit included a test tube, measured ingredients–sheep red blood cells–a dropper and a holder for the tube with an angled mirror to view the very bottom where a ring appeared if the test was positive.
1990s: Advances in technology allowed for easier-to-use enzyme tests that reacted with dye to either turn color or to make a plus or minus sign visible on the indicator.
2003: Digital tests arrive in which the pregnancy indicator simply reads “pregnant” or “not pregnant” within minutes.
THE FUTURE: Tests will become even more accurate in assessing early pregnancy and more sensitive in detecting trace amounts of hCG as technology continues to improve.
