“Whether your pregnancy was meticulously planned, medically coaxed, or happened by surprise, one thing is certain – your life will never be the same.”
Pregnancy and the promise of the pitter-patter of little feet and long afternoon snuggles with your newborn is an exciting time for any parent-to-be, but it is also a stressful time filled with a seemingly endless list of things that need to be done.
It might tempt you to put off your next cleaning or reschedule that restorative appointment but caring for your hormone regulations while you're pregnant is one of the most important things you can do to help you and your unborn bundle of joy stay healthy.
When you're pregnant, your placenta begins producing and releasing human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) into your blood and urine. hCG can be found in a person's blood around 11 days after conception. It takes slightly longer for hCG to register on urine tests. hCG increases quickly (almost doubling every 3 days) for the first 8 to 10 weeks of pregnancy.
A quantitative human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) test measures the specific level of hCG in the blood. hCG is a hormone produced in the body during pregnancy. Quantitative hCG measurement helps determine the exact age of the fetus. It can also assist in the diagnosis of abnormal pregnancies, such as ectopic pregnancies, molar pregnancies, and possible miscarriages. It is also used as part of a screening test for Down syndrome.
What You Need to Know About Your hCG Levels:
1. As you get further along in pregnancy and the hCG level gets higher, the time it takes to double can increase to about every 3 days.
2. Caution must be used in making too much of hCG numbers. A normal pregnancy may have low hCG levels and result in a perfectly healthy baby. The results from an ultrasound after 5 -6 weeks gestation are much more accurate than using hCG numbers.
3. An hCG level of less than 5 mIU/mL is considered negative for pregnancy, and anything above 25 mIU/mL is considered positive for pregnancy.
4. An hCG level between 6 and 24 mIU/mL is considered a grey area, and you’ll likely need to be retested to see if your levels rise to confirm a pregnancy.
5. The hCG hormone is measured in milli-international units per milliliter (mIU/mL).
6. A transvaginal ultrasound should be able to show at least a gestational sac once the hCG levels have reached between 1,000 – 2,000 mIU/mL. Because levels can differentiate so much and conception dating can be wrong, a diagnosis should not be made by ultrasound findings until the hCG level has reached at least 2,000 mIU/mL.
7. A single reading is not enough information for most diagnoses. When there is a question regarding the health of the pregnancy, multiple testings of hCG done a couple of days apart give a more accurate assessment of the situation.
8. The hCG levels should not be used to date a pregnancy since these numbers can vary so widely.
9. There are two common types of hCG tests. A qualitative test detects if hCG is present in the blood. A quantitative test (or beta) measures the amount of hCG actually present in the blood.
Guideline to hCG levels in weeks during pregnancy
What Abnormal Results Mean
Higher than normal level may indicate:
During pregnancy, lower than normal levels based on the gestational age may indicate:
Biotime Response
Most mothers agree that becoming a new Mom can be the most exciting and the most terrifying adventure you’ll have in life. Bringing a new life into the world, pregnant women will be faced with plenty of challenges – Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology β-hCG can be one of the best indicator for the healthy pregnancy and healthy baby bringing into life. β-hCG helps to detect an early pregnancy and monitoring of embryonic development. Diagnosing of abnormal pregnancy (ectopic pregnancy). It can assist in the observing of fetal protection treatment, postpartum and miscarriage also prenatal screening.
References:
GBD Results Tool https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-results/
WHO https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/birth-defects
CDC https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/data.html
The Lancent https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00954-5
United Nations https://www.un.org/en/
American Pregnancy Association https://americanpregnancy.org/getting-pregnant/hcg-levels/
Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology Co., Ltd. https://www.xiamenbiotime.com/
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