How accurate are HPT?

[Booties]

Girls, I was just wondering how accurate you have found HPT to be? If you take them before AF is due is there a chance they will come up negative even though you could still be pregnant?
Has this ever happened to anyone? Would love to hear from you all.

[~Hestia~]

If you take a HPT too early it can come up as negative. There are special ones you can buy that are designed for testing before AF is due.
I used one of these early ones & got a negative result. A couple of days later I tested again & got a positive. I guess even an early test can be used too soon!!

[MummaSue]

If there is enough HCG in your system then a HPT will pick it up - but nothing is more accurate than a blood test.

[Kazbah]

I was negative at 5days before with an early-test kit. Then got a positive 2 days after LMP.

But the doc wouldn't give me a blood test cause the HPTs are just as good as their doc urine tests.

[Cricket]

If you get one of the early detection HPTs, they'll tell you the accuracy rate for every day as you get closer to AF. I think at 5 days before, it's something like 70%, and then goes up every day from there, until the day you expect AF, at which point it's about 99% accurate.

So yes, if you test early, you could very likely have a false negative.

All the best!