Homemade Pregnancy Test With Baking Soda

Confirmation of pregnancy can come as a blessing to most couples who have been trying to conceive for a really long time. There are several methods to test your pregnancy and find out if you are carrying a little baby. While a lot of them sure add to the excitement of the pregnancy journey, only some tests come closer to revealing the truth. A very simple and doable test that can be done at home is the baking soda test. This pregnancy test uses a kitchen staple to confirm your pregnancy. It is perfect if you don’t have access to a pregnancy test or if you simply can’t wait until you get one. In this article, we shall discuss what baking soda pregnancy test is, how accurate it is, and more.

What Is the Baking Soda Pregnancy Test?

A baking soda pregnancy test is a simple homemade pregnancy test with baking soda that can be done anytime during the pregnancy. The idea behind the test is to check for pregnancy at home using kitchen staple. The expecting mother needs to add a few drops of her morning urine to a spoonful of baking soda and check the acidity of the urine. If she is pregnant, she will notice some fizz. This is because baking soda or sodium bicarbonate reacts with most acids.

Accuracy of the Baking Soda Pregnancy Test

The accuracy percentage for this test is 50%. The result is compromised because the acidity of the urine depends on several other parameters in the body. The acidity level changes each day depending on the food intake, water intake, etc. making it a very poor and loose indicator of pregnancy. On days when the mother is dehydrated because of vomiting or a general reduction in the water intake, the urine tends to be more acidic, leading to an incorrect prediction. Nevertheless, the baking soda test is a good predictor of the urine’s acidity, but may not be a great indicator to confirm a pregnancy.

How to Perform This Test

This test is a very simple procedure that you can do at your home without any sophisticated equipment.

What You Need

To carry out the baking soda home pregnancy test, you will need the following.

• A tablespoon of baking soda.
• Some urine collected early in the morning/ the first urine of the day.
• A sterilised container to collect the urine.
• Another sterilised container to hold the baking soda.
• A pair of plastic or surgical gloves.

Method

• Wash your hands thoroughly and dry them. Then wear gloves.
• Collect some urine in a container. Be sure not to contaminate the sample.
• Take some baking soda in another container and pour a few millilitres of urine onto it.

It is preferred that you perform this test using your first urine of the day as the urine may get diluted through the day as you drink water. This can alter or skew the results of the test. Although the quantity of the baking soda or urine required to perform the test isn’t specified, it is recommended that you use equal parts of both the items.

How to Interpret the Test Results

The results can be interpreted as soon as you mix a few drops of your urine into the baking soda. You will get a fizzy reaction immediately if you are pregnant. If not, the test indicates that you haven’t conceived yet. To reiterate, the test is not 100% accurate. The human chorionic gonadotropin hormone (hCG), which is produced during pregnancy, could have a reaction with the baking soda making it bubble or fizz, but the fizz could also be because of the acidity in the urine.

The baking soda pregnancy test can be taken as early as the first trimester. The HCG levels usually reach a high point after the tenth week of pregnancy, and it is better to attempt this test after that, but the results are not guaranteed.

While the test may not be entirely accurate, it could be a way to test your pregnancy results, especially if you don’t want to wait until you get a pregnancy test kit or make it to the hospital to confirm the pregnancy. However, in order to confirm your pregnancy, it is always recommended that you go to a doctor to get a more accurate result of your pregnancy. Your doctor will perform some blood and urine tests to confirm your pregnancy.

Also Read:

Homemade Pregnancy Tests
How to Confirm Pregnancy Without Taking a Test?