To date, these tests can be broken down into two categories, either based on the location where they are performed or the body fluid used as a sample. Simply put, you have your homemade test and the other one is a pregnancy blood test.

Home pregnancy test requires a urine sample to determine if a form of life is currently developing inside your womb. On the other hand, blood pregnancy tests, as the name suggests, use blood samples to see if you and your husband is expecting your firstborn or another child in the family. The latter can only be executed by a doctor and done in a laboratory.

Although these are two different kinds of tests, they almost work the same. Both of them are looking for traces of HCG in either your blood or urine. HCG is human chorionic gonadotrophin which is a pregnancy hormone secreted whenever a fertilized egg is being implanted in the uterine wall. If the tests show that you have HCG, then it’s positive. A baby is on the way.

So now we know the two tests to choose from. The question is which one is the best for you? Most home pregnancy tests out there in the market and online such as EPT, First Response Early Result (claims to deliver the earliest possible results even days before your missed period), Clearblue Easy Digital, Fact Plus, Equate, and others have been proven reliable by both experts and users. However, if you’re after something more accurate and sensitive than those, choose the blood test for pregnancy option.

What’s even greater about pregnancy blood tests is the fact that you’ll have lesser chances to get a false negative or false positive result. By the way, Clear Blue, claims to have 99% accuracy, what with its digital display showing either “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant”, minimizing user errors and misinterpretation of the traditional ‘two lines’.

It’s clear enough that you’ll get a more accurate reading with blood tests but many women still use home test kits for various reasons. It could be that they just want to find out right away or they just want to check it out themselves without involving any doctor first.