Google "home pregnancy test" and you’ll find lots of DIY hacks using ingredients like salt, sugar, soap, bleach or baking soda. There’s one more substance in your medicine cabinet that can supposedly tell you whether you’re pregnant: toothpaste.
But can you really find out whether you're pregnant using a tube of toothpaste? Here's what you need to know about the toothpaste pregnancy test, including how it works and how accurate it is.
What is the toothpaste pregnancy test?
The at-home toothpaste pregnancy test involves adding a few drops of urine to a bit of toothpaste. The resulting chemical reaction purportedly tells you whether you’re expecting, although it’s not scientifically sound.
How do you take the toothpaste pregnancy test?
Here's how to take the DIY toothpaste pregnancy test, according to some video tutorials on YouTube:
- Squeeze a layer of white toothpaste so it fills the bottom of a small cup.
- Add a few drops of urine (how many drops seems to be up for debate).
- Stir the mixture.
- Watch to see if the toothpaste foams or changes color.
How does the toothpaste pregnancy test work?
In theory, the acids in a pregnant woman’s urine could cause toothpaste to foam. The acidity of a non-pregnant person’s urine, however, could have the same effect — making this little experiment interesting but not dependable.
Here’s how: When you’re pregnant, your body begins producing human chorionic gonadotropin, aka hCG. This hormone, which is made up of amino acids, is what regular home pregnancy tests and your doctor are looking for in your urine and blood.
Toothpaste, in turn, contains a chemical called calcium carbonate. It’s used as an abrasive to scrub the surface of the teeth.
When the calcium carbonate in the toothpaste combines with the amino acids of hCG in urine, it could theoretically produce carbon dioxide gas. In other words, it foams.
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There is a catch: Normal urine also contains uric acid and tends to be slightly acidic, with a normal pH range of 4.6 to 8.0 (a pH less than 7.0 is acidic). That means the uric acid in your pee could cause the same reaction whether or not you’re pregnant.
As for hCG allegedly turning the toothpaste blue, there doesn’t really seem to be evidence that always happens — or a scientific explanation as to why it would.
How accurate is the toothpaste pregnancy test?
While it might be a fun chemistry experiment (if you’re into that kind of thing), the toothpaste pregnancy test is not an accurate or reliable way to tell whether or not you’re pregnant.
When should you take the toothpaste pregnancy test?
It’s fine to take a toothpaste pregnancy test for fun, but you can’t count on the results to be accurate. If you want to confirm whether you’re pregnant, it’s best to take a home pregnancy test.
Ideally you should wait at least until the day that your period is supposed to show up. At that point, there should be enough hCG in your urine to be detectable.
Also, try to take the test in the morning, when the hCG in your urine is most concentrated.
How to read toothpaste pregnancy test results
After stirring the toothpaste and the urine together, watch to see if the solution foams or changes color. If it does, you’re pregnant—according to the legend, anyway. But remember, the results are only for fun. A toothpaste test can’t actually confirm that you’re pregnant.
What does a positive toothpaste pregnancy test look like?
If you’re expecting, the toothpaste will supposedly begin to foam or turn blue (or both). But the mixture in many online video tutorials doesn’t look particularly blue, and remember that there’s no scientific reason it would change colors.
Keep in mind that the uric acid in your pee could cause the toothpaste to foam even if you’re not pregnant.
What does a negative toothpaste pregnancy test look like?
If you’re not expecting, the toothpaste supposedly won’t foam or turn blue. But since urine is typically acidic, there’s a good chance the mixture will foam either way.
Bottom line: If you think you might be expecting, your best bet is still to use an approved, store-bought at-home pregnancy test rather than any of the DIY options out there.
It’s a much more precise way of detecting hCG in your urine as soon as six to 12 days after fertilization — though you’ll get the most accurate result if you can wait until 19 days after fertilization, or a day after your expected period. The levels of hCG in urine are low early in pregnancy, but increase as the pregnancy progresses. Many tests claim to be up to 99 percent accurate.
Once you've taken a legitimate home pregnancy test and gotten a positive result, you can confirm the pregnancy with a blood test at your OB/GYN's office, which definitively tells you whether or not your body is producing hCG — and a baby.
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