Pregnancy

The Woman During Pregnancy: The Signs of Pregnancy

Probable Signs of Pregnancy
A greater degree of certainty is provided by the so called probable signs of pregnancy, such as an enlargement of the uterus, a softening of the cervix, and an enlargement of the abdomen sometime during the third month. Three weeks after implantation (or about six weeks after the last menstruation) the placental hormone chorionic gonadotropin can be detected in the woman's urine. Such a simple pregnancy test can be made within a few minutes. However, although a positive test (detecting the hormone) is almost always correct, a negative result (failing to detect the hormone) is not necessarily reliable.