Pregnancy Test Evaporation Line (A term that is often misused!)

Posted on July 19th, 2011. Written by POAS Mom.

If you see a line on your pregnancy test you are most likely pregnant! (But ONLY if you’ve followed the directions – do not open the test casing and don’t read the test after the recommended time limit.) Many women fret that it may be a nasty Evaporation Line. This term has been floating around the internet for quite some time, but the term is often misused.

An Evaporation Line on a pregnancy test can ONLY occur AFTER the test is dry. This will be well after the recommended time limit outlined in the pregnancy test instructions. Sometimes when a pregnancy test has dried, you may see a very faint line (usually colourless) where the antibody strip is located. If the test is still wet (and withing the time limit) and you see a line, it can not be an evaporation line as evaporation has not yet occurred! So don’t call it one!

So read the instructions, read the results within the recommended time frame and trust the results! Then throw the test away (and don’t look back!!). Don’t give in to the temptation to pluck your test out of the trash and look at it hours later. You could be setting yourself up for heartbreak.

If you want to hyper-analyze your test take a few pictures at around 3-5 minutes (usually a max of 10 minutes). That way you can actually analyze the test results accurately, instead of dealing with a dried up stick of confusion!

If you get a line on a pregnancy test, within the time limit and you NOT pregnant then it is called a False Positive – not an evaporation line. False positives are very rare.