Notwithstanding her legal troubles like DUI arrests, unsettled family life, Nicole Richie has at last found something to smile upon. According to an insider, during her trip to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, she underwent a very heartening ultrasound. She and her boyfriend, Joel Madden, found out that the gender of their baby is a boy! Although many of her friends told that Richie was expecting a girl, yet Nicole was very happy to get the news of 16 weeks into her pregnancy. Now she has to get down to the not-so-simple task of picking out the perfect baby name. One general comment from the public read,



?I was wondering how pleasing, homely and in the family way it would have been for all of us to hear the news of a boy coming to Nicole Richie from her legitimate husband instead of from a boyfriend Joel Madden?.

However another important aspect relating to the issue is the degree of accuracy ?home pregnancy test? carries. The home pregnancy tests are common these days to find the gender of the baby still in the making within mothers? womb. Since the celebrity, Nicole Richie, has found out about her pregnancy via home pregnancy test that she is having a boy, it is very important to know and discuss the home pregnancy test for the interest and knowledge of all pregnant women.

Home Pregnancy Test

In order to ascertain whether you are pregnant or not, you may want to test yourself at your home through the ?Home Pregnancy Teat?. Even without a prescription, you can buy the Test Kits, which are easily available at the drug stores. The urine tested through these test kits help measure Chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone in your urine. But the result from this test, which is qualitative in nature, can either be positive or negative for pregnancy.

It should be noted that the hormone hCG usually gets detected in urine nearly 2 weeks after the conception takes place i.e. after the egg begins to be fertilized by sperm. The simple procedure involving this home test kit is that you place a drop of your urine on a prepared chemical strip. It usually takes 1 or 2 minutes for the strip to indicate the result.

Accuracy and Reliability of Home Pregnancy Test

Most women initially prefer quick results from home test kits for reasons of privacy and convenience. However home pregnancy tests are not as accurate and reliable as your blood tests done by the health care provider. Also the home pregnancy tests cannot determine the stage of your pregnancy i.e. whether it is developing as is expected normally.

But it should be noted that the most accurate and reliable test of pregnancy is best performed by a laboratory using a sample of your blood. These tests, conducted by your health care provider, not only detect hCG but also can indicate the quantitative amount of this hormone, which doubles every 2-3 days during the first several weeks of pregnancy. These more sensitive tests can tell how long you have been pregnant and even detect the possible problems with the pregnancy.