Imagine your period is late, and you're freaking out. You rush to the pharmacy, grab a pregnancy test off the shelf, and head over to pay for it. But what if I told you that an STD could affect the results of your pregnancy test? Yes, that's right; an STD could alter the result of a pregnancy test! Scary thought isn't it? Well worry not my friend because in this article we will get into all things Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and Pregnancy tests.
What Are Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs)?
Sexually transmitted diseases are infections that are passed from one person to another through sexual contact. There are more than 20 types of sexually transmitted infections or STIs as they’re commonly known. These include chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV/AIDS among others (Source).
How Do They Spread?
STDs spread through unprotected vaginal intercourse or anal sex with someone who has an active infection by the particular pathogen responsible for causing them (Source).
Could Kissing Be A Cause Of Spreading STDs?
Kissing doesn’t typically cause any transmission unless one partner opposes cuts caused by razor burns/wounds on their lips which is highly unlikely but possible due to other reasons such as mistakenly biting your tongue/labia during kissing.
Pregnancy Tests
A pregnancy test detects human chorionic gonadotropin hormone (hCG) from urine samples taken by expectant mothers intending to discover whether they’re pregnant or not (source).
Types Of Pregnancy Tests
There two main types of home pregnancy tests: those using pee strips/urine dipsticks where a woman urinates on then reads within minutes for visual change detectable color change indicating positive/negative sign indicating no traces hCG hormone were present. The second type of pregnancy test relies on electronic devices such as Clearblue easy digital which displays either pregnant or not pregnant but its color-coding and technology gives a high accuracy rate between 97% to 99%.
False Positives And Negatives
One possible cause for a home pregnancy test to provide false positives may be due to chemical pregnancies. Chemical pregnancies are when an egg fails fertilization quite early, then gets eliminated from the woman's womb prior it develops further enough before being shed with menstruation (source).
Home pregnancy tests can also yield false negatives since individual samples don't contain enough hCG levels corresponding within minimum hormone detection limits in some cases . Also waiting too long or too short could inconvenience accurate testing thereby yielding inconclusive test results that should be reconfirmed through follow-up trials/testing routines (source).
What Happens When An STD Interferes With The Pregnancy Test?
When you get an STD such as gonorrhea or chlamydia, your body creates antibodies to combat these germs;these immune system by-products could interfere with components detected during pregnancy conception phases, leading them into giving out erroneous negative/positive reading signals depending upon selected diagnostic modeling applied at any given moment by manufacturers selling urine sticks/dipsticks thus making women think they're expecting despite not actually been so (false-positive)or thinking otherwise just because there’s no detectable hCG hormone present.
So if you have chlamydia or gonorrhea whilst conducting a self screening home based urine based pergnancy test two likely scenarios exist:
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Still Pregnant + Chlamydia/Gonorhoea
In this case scenario even though one might have both conditions while undertaking routine testing process simulteneously , their antbodies may remain dormant since none of these infections affect the accuracy of administering precise diagnostic conclusions related primary fertility/maternity outcomes arising after proper sampling and microscopic analysis has been carried out. -
False-Positive Pregnancy Results
False-positives or false-negatives test results may arise when having certain STIs without the convenience of prior specialist medical advice or screening processes at specific intervals (source).
The Impact Of Medications
Taking antibiotics to cure STDs, however minor they might seem could still interfere with your pregnancy tests by altering biochemical compositions within individual specimens taken as urine samples yielding altered diagnostic signals that may lead you believing falsities reflecting inaccurate outcomes and thus warranting further accurate testing trials after a safe pregnacy interval has passed since medication completing periods .
Conclusion
Have bacteria such as chlamydia ever interfered with your routine urinary-based pregnancy check? You should know now!
Let us always seek proffesional guidance/testing relationships from teams doctor/medical professionals who are well equipped in providing an array of services related before/during the gestation process be it extraction of reliable genetic data for developing fetuses within wombs; Deliveries across different timeframes(dependent on logistics); maternity anticpatory support among others so that we don't fall for assuming all is well which can never be fine during these tender but nerveracking times about matters reproductive health.
So think twice before going on a wild sexcapade, use protection and always get tested; Not just once!(That’s funny right...Right?)