TESTING FOR PREGNANCY
II.CO. is the basis of the well-known pregnancy tests. It does not take long before H.CG. appears in the bloodstream. As its production increases, certain amounts are also excreted in the urine; the urine tests for pregnancy rely on detecting H.CG. If present, it is fairly positive evidence (hat pregnancy has taken place. However, it takes several days before adequate amounts appear in the urine, and a woman may have missed at least one, and maybe two, normal menstrual periods before the tests show up as positive.
More recently, a very delicate test called the radio-immunoassay test has been devised. This can pick up extremely minute amounts of H.C.G. in the Wood Using this test, pregnancy can now be accurately detected within days of conception and certainly many days before the first missed period. For women who wonder if they are pregnant, and have reason to suspect they are, it is worm bearing in mind that such a reliable test is now readily available to doctors.
In many countries the urine test is now available as ‘do-it-yourself’ kits. Many women have tried them. They are fairly reliable, although to an untrained eye and inexperienced women, it may be hard reading the test. But with a bit of practice, owe soon becomes adept at it. Just the same, if there is any query about a probable pregnancy, proper examination by the doctor is always the best idea.
Now supposing the reverse of this set of circumstances occurs, la short, suppose there are no male sperms In the Fallopian tube when the egg is making its journey towards the uterus. After intercourse, sperms remain alive for 2-1—18 hours. Nobody is quite certain of that full life endurance. It takes about 2-3 days for the egg to make its journey from one end of the tube to the other. Adding up all these probabilities, there is in theory only a very limited number of days per menstrual month when a woman may become pregnant, even when everything is in her favour.
It is startling, to say the least, that the world population remains at such a high level when these facts are considered. It must mean that an awful lot of people spend an awful lot of their time making love. Or is it just plain good luck (or bad luck, depending on your view).
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