What does a smudged pregnancy test mean?

If you are pregnant but very early in your pregnancy, the line or double line on your pregnancy test will likely be barely visible, like a smudge of chalk. If you're farther along and the hormones are flowing, the line or lines will resemble marks drawn with a Sharpie.

What causes a dye smudge on a pregnancy test?

Evaporation lines are colorless streaks, not faint lines. They typically appear if a person waits for longer than the suggested time to read the test result. An evaporation line can also appear if the test gets wet. An evaporation line does not indicate that a woman is pregnant.

What does a faulty positive pregnancy test look like?

For the line tests, sometimes, a faint-colored second line appears. This may represent an early pregnancy or may simply be an evaporation line. If you read the test after the recommended time in the instructions, the results might be a false-positive since the evaporation line may show up more clearly.

Does a blank pregnancy test mean your pregnant?

Also, the pregnancy test should have a control line that tells you whether the test was done correctly. If the control line is blank, then the test did not work and you should take another test.

What does a faded pregnancy test look like?

The pregnancy test looks like it's positive—there seems to be some sort of a faint line—but it's actually not a true positive result. An evaporation line rarely has any color to it. It's more like a faint line where you would expect to see a pink or blue line.

Faint Line on a Pregnancy Test: What Does it REALLY Mean?

Do evaporation lines disappear?

Do evaporation lines disappear? While evap lines do fade a little, thinning as time passes, they don't tend to fully disappear. Once the pregnancy test is discolored from an evaporation line, it's not possible to change it back to new.

Can a faint line be negative?

A very faint line may also occur if the urine is too diluted to detect hCG. Drinking a large amount of fluid can dilute the urine and skew the results. If a faint line becomes a negative test result the second time around, it could be the result of a very early miscarriage in the first few days and weeks of pregnancy.

Can you pee too much on a pregnancy test?

Excess fluids can impact the accuracy of the test results, so if your urine is diluted or pale yellow, hold off on taking a test. Diluted urine tends to also have diluted hCG levels which can skew the test results.

Can you reuse a pregnancy test if nothing showed up?

And while they do pretty well at what they're supposed to do — detect the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) — to get accurate results, you need to follow package instructions as written. So no, you can't reuse a pregnancy test.

Can you reuse a pregnancy test if you didn't pee enough?

Can a pregnancy test come up negative if I didn't pee enough? A false negative on a home pregnancy test is possible, but extremely unlikely. As long as your urine got on the test's absorbent strip, it should be accurate. You can always take another test if you're worried you might have missed.

What does an evaporation line look like on a clear blue test?

Evaporation lines are common and can occur with any pregnancy test. An evaporation line is a line that appears in the results window of a pregnancy test as the urine dries. It can leave a faint, colorless line. If you're not familiar with evaporation lines, you might see this line and think you're pregnant.

How faint Can a line be on a positive pregnancy test?

A pregnancy test detects the presence of the hCG 'pregnancy' hormone. HCG is normally only present in your body if you are pregnant. Any positive line, no matter how faint, means your result is pregnant.

How common are evaporation lines?

An evaporation line on a pregnancy test is basically a false positive. While true false positives and false negatives are fairly rare,1 the evaporation line is the closest most women will come to having an error on their pregnancy tests.

Do pink dye pregnancy tests have evaporation lines?

Unfortunately, sometimes, the evaporation of urine used to take the test will create a very faint second line in the test area. This generally happens after the instructed wait time (typically 3 to 5 minutes) has passed.

Can a negative pregnancy test turn positive overnight?

Evaporation lines happen when the urine that was on the test area starts to dry. The chemical composition of the urine sample changes due to evaporation. As a result, the test may start to display a positive line. After the allotted time has passed, you should discard the pregnancy test to avoid confusion.

What happens if you pee on a pregnancy test longer than 5 seconds?

Five seconds feels a bit longer when aiming your pee, but pulling the stick away too quickly or not leaving it in your urine stream long enough can affect the validity of the result.

Should I take two pregnancy tests in one day?

It's a common scene in television shows and movies: A woman takes a pregnancy test, sees the result and then, in excitement or disbelief, takes two more. In reality, taking a second test immediately following the first is often unnecessary.

What happens if you flood a pregnancy test?

When you're pregnant, the hCG molecules would get sandwiched between two antibodies and this is how it's detected by a pregnancy test. However, if you've already got too much hCG in your body, the antibodies will be flooded and the test will come back negative. This is called the 'hook effect'.

Does a faint line mean miscarriage?

Unfortunately, a faint positive line can also be a sign of a very early miscarriage, sometimes called a chemical pregnancy, which occurs within the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy, often much earlier. If you take a home pregnancy test after a miscarriage, your test may reveal a faint positive line.

Why is my pregnancy test getting lighter but no bleeding?

This is due in large part to the concentration of your urine at any given time. This can fluctuate dramatically throughout the day depending on how much fluid you drink and how frequently you urinate, among other things. The more you drink, the more diluted the hCG in your urine will become.

Will a pregnancy test turn positive after sitting?

If you let the test sit too long the the test may show a false positive result. A false positive is when the tests shows you are pregnant when you actually are not. Pregnancy tests work by detecting a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin, HCG. A hormone is chemical produced in your body.

What Colour are clear blue evaporation lines?

On a blue dye test, the line can appear as gray or even a lighter shade of blue. (Note: For some reason, anecdotally, many mamas find that blue dye tests are more prone to evaporation lines.) Sometimes, though, the evaporation line appears as a colorless streak, almost like an indentation.

Can evaporation lines indicate early pregnancy?

If a pink line showed up quickly, then it is likely a positive, pregnant result. If the line only showed up much later (say ten minutes or more) than the control line, it may be an evaporation line.

How quickly does the T line show up?

A positive result can appear at any time after 20 minutes, however you should wait for the full 30 minutes to record a negative result as the test line (T) may take this long to appear.

Will a faint positive get darker as it dries?

That's because the results are accurate when the urine is still wet. Once it dries, urine may leave a faint line where it evaporated – an "evap line." Unlike positive result lines, which are usually dark or bright, an evap line will be colorless. Very diluted urine.