A home pregnancy test makes it easy for women to know right away if they are expecting a baby. It’s as simple as A-B-C: you put a small amount of your urine on a stick and the color of the lines change to pink if you are pregnant. Otherwise, if there is no change in color, then you get a negative result. But what if you only see avery faint line? To someone who is anxious to know, this can be a very ambiguous sign. 

Very Faint Line on Pregnancy Test: Am I Pregnant?

Yes, even a very faint change in color to pink ona home pregnancy test indicates a positive result. Here’s why: the change in color means that the test has detected the presence of a hormone in your urine calledhCG (human chorionic gonadotropin). This hormone only appears in the urine if a woman is pregnant.

Home pregnancy tests are designed to detect the presence of hCG in the urine as early as the second or third day of a missed period. This occurs about 15-16 days after ovulation, during which your egg may have been fertilized. Avery faint line may indicate that there is still very little hCG in your urine because your body has just started to produce it early in your pregnancy.

The results of home pregnancy tests may vary according to the product’s sensitivity. Sensitive tests may show positive results more clearly even during early pregnancy, while others that are less sensitive might only showa very faint line.

What Else Could Cause a Very Faint Line on Pregnancy Test?

Aside from the test product’s sensitivity, there are other possible reasons why results of a home pregnancy test may be vague:

• You did not follow instructions accurately. This is the most common reason why women get false negative results or faint lines rather than bold ones. The results of a pregnancy test are usually obtained 5-10 minutes after urine gets in contact with the indicator. If you read it too soon, you might only see a very faint line.
• You did the test too early in pregnancy. It takes some time for your body to produce hCG after the egg is fertilized and implanted. Up to about one week after your expected period, your hCG levels may be too low for a home test to detect.
• You mistake evaporation lines as a positive result. If you don’t read your results within the prescribed period, you might see evaporation lines that appear as faint lines when urine residues dry up. You might think this is a positive result, but actually it is not. This can happen to any brand, so it is important for you to check your results within the time frame recommended.
• Your urine is diluted. If you take a pregnancy test after you have taken lots of water and not early in the morning when you have just woken up, there’s the possibility that the hCG was diluted in your urine, producinga very faint line on pregnancy test.
• You had an early miscarriage. If you happened to conceive but have a miscarriage before any pregnancy symptoms are experienced, your pregnancy test may detect the presence of hCG.
• You are using an expired or improperly stored test kit. This is one possible reason why your test is not working accurately.
• You are taking certain medicine such as fertility medications or thorazine, which contain hCG and can give you a false positive result.

What Can I Do If I Have a Very Faint Line on Pregnancy Test?

The simplest solution is to wait a little while longer, perhaps 1-2 days, to check you hCG levels again. They tend to rise exponentially, so in just a couple of days you are likely see a bolder line in your test.

Use your first morning urine in a home pregnancy test. This is more concentrated than urine produced after you have consumed liquids and may therefore contain more hormones that can be easily detected by the test.

Take a blood test, which can more accurately detect hCG. A blood test is more sensitive than a urine test and can detect the hormone as early as 6-8 days after ovulation.

If you are in doubt because you got a very faint line on pregnancy test, try a digital pregnancy test. This type of test clearly states whether you are pregnant or not. However, its accuracy also depends on the test sensitivity especially in early pregnancy.

What Other Moms' Experiences

“In my own experience, any line, even the faintest pink line indicates a positive result. My first pregnancy test was a very faint line. My husband did not believe I was pregnant. So I took another test using a different brand the next morning. It confirmed the first result – now I have twins!”

“I have taken them twice in the past 2 days and in both I got very faint lines on pregnancy tests. I am going to see if I get lucky with my third test because my husband and I have been praying for a baby for two years now.”