Beta HCG level. This ivf treatment baby!

Problems with HCG testing can occur if you have earlier been given HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) injections for inducing ovulation. Normally, this exogenous HCG is excreted by the body in 10 days; but sometimes it can linger on. This is why, if the HCG level is very low, the test may need to be repeated, to confirm that the level is increasing. These are pregnancies in which the HCG test is positive after the period has been missed; the levels increase, but are still low; and no pregnancy is ever documented on ultrasound. Biochemical pregnancies are often seen after IVF and GIFT. While they are not clinical pregnancies, they are of useful prognostic information, because they may mean that your chance of getting pregnant in a future cycle are good. One drawback with the HCG test is that a positive HCG simply means a pregnancy is present in the body - it does not provide any information about the location of this pregnancy, which may be tubal or ectopic. During the very early pregnancy, HCG levels are the only way of monitoring the pregnancy. HCG levels which do not increase as rapidly as they should may mean that there is a problem with the pregnancy - the embryo may miscarry because it is unhealthy; or the pregnancy could be an ectopic pregnancy. Differentiating between the two conditions is obviously important, and this is where vaginal ultrasound plays a key role. Remember that the HCG is produced by the placenta, and not the embryo. This means that the HCG levels may continue to rise even if you have a non-viable pregnancy ( also known as an anembryonic pregnancy or missed abortion). After 7 weeks, HCG levels are of little use in monitoring the health of the pregnancy. After this time, ultrasound scans are much more useful, as they allow us to directly see the fetus.