Whether you’re hoping for a positive or negative outcome, waiting for the result of a home pregnancy test feels like it takes decades.

Either way, a positive result is life-changing, whether it means making some difficult decisions or starting a new phase on your own or with your partner.

This is why it’s important for these tests to be at least a little bit accurate. If accuracy is what you’re after, you’re going to want to avoid Clicks.

Here’s Business Insider:

In testing by Business Insider South Africa, the Clicks digital pregnancy test consistently gave the result “Pregnant” when exposed to ordinary tap water.

We were first alerted to the malfunctioning tests by a woman who shared her emotional devastation at learning she was not, in fact, pregnant, and also provided a photo of her test reading positive.

Following this, they bought two units of the same test from a Clicks store in Johannesburg. They disassembled the first, and used the second according to the instructions – only they used ordinary tap water instead of urine. You can see the result here:

So either we need to have a serious conversation about the hormones and urine in our tap water (unlikely), or there is something seriously wrong with these tests.

Following their initial experiment, Business Insider bought more pregnancy tests, and this time they filmed the result. Take a look:

Scary stuff. There must be a lot of very panicked or very disappointed people out there.

In response to queries about the tests, Clicks spokesperson Susann Caminada had the following to say:

“Thank you for alerting us to this issue. As a responsible health retailer we take the wellbeing of our customers extremely seriously. We are withdrawing the product from shelves as a precautionary measure, pending further investigation by our supplier.”

That’s it. No more, no less, despite the potential impact of the false-positives.

False-negative pregnancy tests are sometimes considered the bigger threat to public health, but experts have warned of the extreme emotional – and sometimes physical – impact a false-positive pregnancy test can have.

“This result could lead to a purposeless abortion procedure as well as psychological trauma for a woman who wants to be pregnant, thinks she is, and in reality is not,” warned one academic paper in 2011.

Many women in South Africa still don’t have access to safe and legal abortions, where a confirmation test would be done before the medical procedure. This means that these tests could potentially endanger the lives of women who attempt a home abortion without actually being pregnant.

For affordable reproductive health care advice and services, including pregnancy termination and pregnancy tests, contact Marie Stopes SA.

[source:businessinsider]