A History of being pregnant Tests | Science-Atlas.com (2025)

An early U.S. pregnancy test involved sacrificing rabbits. Before over-the-counter tests, there were plenty of folk methods for early detection of pregnancy. One of them involved a rabbit (or a frog, or a mouse), and it actually worked.

Trying to figure out if you’re pregnant is probably as old as humanity itself. People had some pretty weird methods, like urinating on wheat and barley seeds (which kind of worked!), or mixing urine with wine for divination by a “wine prophet,” or shoving an onion into a patient’s vagina to see if it gave her bad breath. (This does NOT work, Gwyneth Paltrow. Do not recommend this. )These days, people who think they might be pregnant can pee on testing sticks that check for the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). But nearly a century ago, when reliable HCG testing was being developed, it looked about as bizarre as the “wine prophet” and was so expensive only wealthy people could afford it. Over-the-counter pregnancy tests cost less now but still stretch some people’s budgets — especially if they want to take them regularly. With Texas’s abortion law essentially banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, early detection is more important than ever. Hormones were a relatively new concept to Western scientists in the 1920s, when gynecologists Selmar Aschheim and Bernhard Zondek were conducting research at a Berlin teaching hospital.

Video advice: History of pregnancy testing

Mice, rabbits, frogs and sheep – each took their turn in the development of pregnancy tests.

Pregnancy test: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia

A pregnancy test measures a hormone in the body called human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). HCG is a hormone produced during pregnancy. It appears in the blood and urine of pregnant women as early as 10 days after conception. A pregnancy test is done using blood or urine. There are 2 types of blood tests:Qualitative, which measures whether the HCG hormone is presentQuantitative, which measures how much HCG is presentThe blood test is done by drawing a single tube of blood and sending it to a laboratory. You may wait anywhere from a few hours to more than a day to get the results. The urine HCG test is most often performed by placing a drop of urine on a prepared chemical strip. It takes 1 to 2 minutes for a result. For the urine test, you urinate into a cup. For the blood test, the health care provider uses a needle and syringe to draw blood from your vein into a tube. Any discomfort you might feel from the blood draw will only last a few seconds. For the urine test, you urinate into a cup. For the blood test, the provider uses a needle and syringe to draw blood from your vein into a tube.

8 Historical Methods of Detecting Pregnancy

Before home pregnancy tests, the most reliable test was just to wait and see. But people still wanted to know as early as possible whether or not they were harboring a tiny human.

According to a contemporary medical journal, it worked like this: A sample of urine was injected into a group of young female mice over a period of five days. On the fifth day, the mice were killed and autopsied to examine the state of their ovaries. If their reproductive bits looked excited, the test was positive. If you wanted your results in less than five days, they could simply use more mice.

Piss Prophets

Home pregnancy tests became widely available in 1978, although they took two hours to develop and were accurate for negative results only 80 percent of the time. Nowadays, they can supposedly tell as early as five days before a person’s missed period. Home pregnancy tests work by detecting trace levels of the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in urine; hCG is present after egg implantation, which occurs six to 12 days after fertilization, and is secreted by the cells that are beginning to form the placenta.

Pregnanccy tests have a bizzare history, but some ancient methods had some genuine scientific merit.

Marc Lallanilla has been a science writer and health editor at About. com and a producer with ABCNews. com. His freelance writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and TheWeek. com. Marc has a Master’s degree in environmental planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

It’s a question as old as womankind: Am I pregnant? Answering that question with a reasonable degree of accuracy proved nettlesome in days past, though some primitive pregnancy tests had genuine scientific merit.Ancient EgyptOne of the first known ways of detecting a pregnancy comes from an ancient Egyptian document estimated to be from 1350 B. C. (11 Big Fat Pregnancy Myths)The papyrus document suggests a woman urinate on wheat and barley seeds. If the wheat sprouted, a female child was on its way, the ancients decreed, and if the barley sprouted, a male child would soon arrive. No sprouts meant no child was expected. Strangely, researchers in the 1960s tested this method and found it had a grain of truth, according to the National Institutes of Health. Higher-than-normal levels of estrogen in pregnant women’s urine, scientists speculated, may stimulate the germination of seeds (but were useless at predicting the sex of the child). Middle Ages A woman’s urine was used as a way to determine her pregnancy status during the Middle Ages, too, when so-called “piss prophets” believed that if a needle placed in a vial of urine turned rust red or black, the woman was probably pregnant, io9.

Pee is for Pregnant: The history and science of urine-based pregnancy tests

by Kelsey Tyssowski figures by Olivia Foster Let me look at your pee, and I’ll tell you your future. For over 3000 years, women wondering if they’ll be mothers have heard some variation of this phrase. In the first known pregnancy tests, ancient Egyptian women urinated on barley or wheat seeds: quickly sprouting seeds indicated pregnancy. While this may sound like pseudoscience, several modern studies …

Video advice: Top 10 Extremely Bizarre Pregnancy Test Methods

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Since hormones are excreted into the urine after they’re done sending their signals, the urine of pregnant women has hCG in it, whereas the urine of anyone who is not pregnant does not. hCG, it turns out, makes mice ovulate, allowing Aschheim and Zondek’s test to detect pregnancy. Since the invention of this test, all modern pregnancy tests have focused on detecting hCG.

“Piss Prophets”: Early history of the pregnancy test

Although it’s not intuitive that analysis of urine would be the key to pregnancy detection, most historical pregnancy tests have, for unknown reasons, focused on just that (Figure 1). In Europe, starting in the Middle Ages, “Piss Prophets” claimed to be able to predict pregnancy with a variety of bizarre urine tests. They believed that pregnant women’s urine would rust a nail, change the color of a leaf, or be home to tiny, living creatures. Based on what we know today, it’s unlikely that any of these tests were actually able to correctly detect pregnancy.

Home pregnancy tests: quality first

Article Home pregnancy tests: quality first was published on April 1, 2022 in the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) (volume 59, issue 5).

Home pregnancy tests (HPTs) were introduced in late 1976 to enable women to check for their pregnancy status “in the privacy and comfort of their own home”, even if earliest written records of urine-based pregnancy tests come from ancient Egypt over 3000 years ago (1). David Haarburger and Tahir S. Pillay have described the history of the pregnancy hormones and the development of bioassays such as the Ascheim-Zondek, the Shapiro-Zwarenstein and the Galli Mainini tests. Only in 1960, Leif Wide and Carl Gemzell developed the first immunological pregnancy test (2), and 15 years later the Warner-Chilcott’s early pregnancy test received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. It should be emphasized that at that time the thermometer was the only home diagnostic tool and therefore, the “point-of-care” pregnancy test was a big breakthrough. The accuracy and quality of the test has been improved over time by introducing monoclonal antibodies and visual labels in immunochromatographic formats and it was reported that until 1988 almost one-third of women used home pregnancy tests (3).

The Home Pregnancy Test in American Culture on JSTOR

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The home pregnancy test went from novelty to norm in twenty-five years. This article explores its cultural impact in the context of the women’s health movement. Though women had long made do without it, the “private little revolution,” as the test was called in an early advertisement, enabled them to take control of their reproductive health care and moved the moment of discovery from the doctor’s office (back) to the home. The article introduces the test, explores its acceptance by physicians and by women, looks at the marketing of the test by drug companies, and traces its use in movies, television, and novels.

History & Policy

pHormone Pregnancy Test (HPT) drugs arecurrently the subject of a government inquiry. Jesse Olszynko-Gryn suggest that consideration of the historical context is vital for a fullunderstanding./p.

In contrast, for Yasmin Qureshi MP, the inquiry “is not so much about the medical evidence. ” Rather, the “crux” for her “is that a lot of evidence was available at the time and the regulator failed to do anything. ” In both scenarios there are several ways in which historical context and expertise will be vital to the EWG’s understanding of the issue.

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The contentious history of pregnancy test drugs: will science find its own path to the truth?

The inquiry’s Expert Working Group (EWG) of fourteen scientists chaired by a consultant gynaecologist is meeting today for the fifth time; their report is planned for next spring. The Group’s terms of reference are to focus on the scientific evidence of a possible association between the use of HPTs (the most common of which was Schering’s Primodos, also marketed in West Germany as Duogynon), and congenital anomalies, as well as what lessons “may be learned for improving existing regulatory systems”.

Pregnancy Testing & Options Education

1. How accurate is the test? +
2. Can I have a retest if my test is negative and my period doesn’t start? +
3. What should I do if the second test is negative? +

Ask the Nurse

For most women, the first visit to our clinic is to receive a free pregnancy test. During this appointment you will meet with one of our registered nurses. After a brief medical history, a nurse will perform a pregnancy test. Our tests are laboratory rated urine tests which means you don’t have to worry about a blood draw and you will have the results within minutes. If your pregnancy test is positive,the nurse will offer education regarding all your options. You may be eligible for an ultrasound to confirm your pregnancy. You will have the opportunity to explore the pros and cons of all your options, take all the time needed to ask any questions you have, and learn about the comprehensive community network of resources available to you. Reference: Information on this page gathered from referenced and reviewed articles on the Mayo Clinic website. You may also want to visit the Mayo Clinic recommendations for prenatal care. Ask the NurseHow accurate is the test?

Video advice: The History of Pregnancy Testing

The history of pregnancy testing from ancient times to modern day.

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