HCG: Wait, What? A Beginner's Guide to the Pregnancy Hormone

If you haven’t been pregnant, tried to, or were pregnant in the “good old days”, then this beginner’s guide will introduce you to HCG – a hormone you probably haven’t heard of. A positive pregnancy test shows HCG has been detected! HCG is human chorionic gonadotropin, which starts being produced by the placenta after the fertilised egg implants in the womb. (source https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/hcg-test) Hence, it is what doctors use to test to see if someone is pregnant.

Officially, an HCG over 5 is considered to be pregnant. Still, most pregnancy tests that you buy in the stores (or online) will only test positive if your HCG levels are either over 10miu/ml, such as with the Clearblue Digital Ultra Early Pregnancy Test or with 25miu/ml, such as the Pregnosis In-Stream Early Detection Pregnancy Test. A pathology lab will say that an HCG between 5 and 25 is equivocal, meaning it could be positive or negative, as some medications can affect HCG levels.

HCG levels will vary from woman to woman. As you can see below, these are the ranges of HCG levels depending on the pregnancy week.

• 3 weeks: 6 – 70 IU/L
• 4 weeks: 10 – 750 IU/L
• 5 weeks: 200 – 7,100 IU/L
• 6 weeks: 160 – 32,000 IU/L
• 7 weeks: 3,700 – 160,000 IU/L
• 8 weeks: 32,000 – 150,000 IU/L
• 9 weeks: 64,000 – 150,000 IU/L
• 10 weeks: 47,000 – 190,000 IU/L
• 12 weeks: 28,000 – 210,000 IU/L
• 14 weeks: 14,000 – 63,000 IU/L
• 15 weeks: 12,000 – 71,000 IU/L
• 16 weeks: 9,000 – 56,000 IU/L
• 16 – 29 weeks (second trimester): 1,400 – 53,000 IUL
• 29 – 41 weeks (third trimester): 940 – 60,000 IU/L
  Source: https://www.pregnancybirthbaby.org.au/hcg-levels

A pregnant women’s HCG levels peak in weeks nine to twelve after which they start to drop again.  The most important HCG measurement that doctors look for in pregnancy is whether your HCG levels are doubling every two to three days from the first result.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for me. My first one was 16.9 on a Wednesday, and two days later, on Friday, it was 20.1.  A week later, mine fell to 2 – miscarriage ☹

Here are some other examples of HCG levels from friends of mine. 
Friend 1
4 weeks – 734
4 weeks 4 days – 3385

Friend 2
3 weeks 4days – 84
4 weeks – 350
5 weeks – 12000

Friend 3
3 weeks – 31
5 weeks – 45,700

I have read a lot of articles on HCG levels. It is stressful when you do the wee on a stick, find out you are pregnant, take a blood test, to then realise your numbers are not that high. It feels a bit like a competition, and those with high HCGs are the winners. However, it is a bit like everything in life; it varies from person to person. Try (and I know it is super hard) not to stress about them and chat to your doctor or fertility expert about the changes between your HCG measurements if they do start low.  If you start with high HCG levels, then go you! The most important thing is that you have a healthy baby, and hopefully, this article helps explain a bit about the importance of HCG levels and why you should try not to stress too much!