Equate Pregnancy Test

The Equate pregnancy test is only available at Wal-Mart. This low-price pregnancy test is a tempting buy if you're on a budget, or if you're trying to get pregnant and want to test often.

How the Equate Pregnancy Test Works

The Equate pregnancy test works much like the other home pregnancy tests on the market. It's a urine test, in the form of a plastic stick with an absorbent tip that's meant to be held in the urine stream. Results appear in two windows--one to confirm that you did the test right and a second to show whether or not you're pregnant.

Consumer Tests

Consumer ratings sites have varied comments about the Equate test. Equate is substantially less expensive than other tests on the market, and some users recommend it as cheap and accurate. Others complain of false positives or tests not working at all. Part of the problem is that Wal-Mart can change manufacturers without changing the name of the product. It's hard to tell if the test you're buying is really the same one a friend recommended a year ago.

In 2003, Consumer Reports tested eighteen pregnancy tests for accuracy and ease of use. The Equate test was one of the lowest-rated on both sensitivity and ease of reading, although it did rank higher if read toward the end of the suggested waiting time. That test was made by a company called LifeCare. However, Wal-Mart appears to have changed manufacturers since the ratings were published. As of late 2006, the manufacturer was a company called Perrigo. So, the Consumer Reports article may not apply to the current version of the Equate pregnancy test at all.

Testing Early

Like most home pregnancy tests, the Equate brand claims to be able to detect pregnancy as early as the first day of a missed period. Again, how accurate this claim is depends on who is actually making the test.

According to a 2004 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Equate pregnancy test made by LifeCare may not have been the best choice to detect a pregnancy early. Researchers evaluated several different tests to see how accurate they would be on the first day of a missed period. Some of the brand-name tests were better than Equate at detecting low levels of HCG. But the test you buy at Wal-Mart today may be of better quality; it appears that the current version of Equate may be more sensitive than the one used in the study.

Evaluating the Test

One way to evaluate a test's sensitivity is to read the package. You're looking for a number next to the letters "mIU" and "HCG." Pregnancy tests look for a pregnancy hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). The level of HCG is low in the first two weeks of pregnancy, and only very sensitive tests will detect it. The term mIU is an abbreviation for "milli-International Units," and it's just the way that HCG is measured. Look for a test that will detect HCG at low levels, around 20 or 25 mIU.

Perrigo claims that its version of the Equate pregnancy test is equivalent to the brand-name e.p.t. test. E.p.t. got a "good" rating from Consumer Reports for sensitivity, which put it in the top half of tests. It rated in about the middle in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology study, giving a positive or faintly positive result for an HCG level of 50 mIU.

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