Can You Take A Pregnancy Test Right After Sex?

When it comes to getting pregnant, whether it's by choice or by accident, you can never know soon enough — the nagging question of pregnancy will haunt you until you find the answer. Luckily, the modern age has provided women with at home pregnancy tests, and for the more patient women, blood tests at the doctor's office. Most pregnancy tests suggest on their packages that you wait until your first missed period, but if you don't want to wait, can you take a pregnancy test immediately after sex?

According to Planned Parenthood, taking a pregnancy test immediately after sex is way too early to give you an accurate result, because it can take up to a week for your egg to get fertilized by the sperm, and the fertilized egg will take another week to implant itself into your uterus. Since pregnancy doesn't occur right after sex, testing for it at that time would be too early.

The American Pregnancy Association (APA) explained that pregnancy tests are designed to detect the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), in your blood or urine, and that because hCG isn't produced until the embryo attaches itself into your uterine lining, the tests will not pick it up until about two weeks after conception, which is around the first day of your missed period. The APA also noted that the earliest tests that can detect pregnancy, with even the tiniest amounts of hCG in your system, are blood tests done by your doctor about seven to 12 days after conception.

If you do think you're pregnant, waiting for an answer is difficult, and patience is usually not a virtue you can muster, but waiting a couple of weeks can give you better and more accurate results. In the meantime, you should prepare yourself for either outcome, and look ahead to what comes next.