Homemade pregnancy tests seem to still be around in the 21st century. One, now viral on TikTok, involves nothing more than common table salt.
What do you need to take the test? According to various sources, you will need:
- a small, clean bowl or cup to hold the urine (preferably transparent)
- two tablespoons of salt
First, put the salt in the clean bowl or cup. Then, collect a small amount of morning urine in another container. Pour the urine over the salt. Wait.
Here's where things get even more unclear. Some sources say you should wait a few minutes, while others say you should wait a few hours.
Apparently, if nothing happens, that means the test is negative. So you are not pregnant. Instead, you will see a “milky” or “foamy” appearance in the cup. According to the claims, the salt reacts with human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone that is present in the urine (and blood) of pregnant women.
How accurate is the saline pregnancy test? It has no scientific basis or medical endorsement; there is no reason to believe that the salt reacts with hCG; there are no published studies that support this idea or the test in general.
But you can get an accurate result because it matches in some cases, according to the laws of probability.
