Pregnancy tests from the dollar store - should you buy them, or should you walk on by?
These tests have been in dollar stores for years now, and for some reason, there is still a stigma surrounding them, even though thousands of women have claimed that these pregnancy tests do actually work.
I am one of those women.
When my husband and I were trying to get pregnant with our first child, I was constantly buying pregnancy tests from the drug store to check if there was a bun in my oven. It was expensive. Just to give you an example of prices, here’s what I was paying:
- First Response Early Result Pregnancy Test: $15-$20
- Clear Blue Pregnancy Test: $10-$15
- Store Brand Pregnancy Test: $7-$10
Now, at first glance, $7-$20 for a pregnancy test doesn’t seem like much, but when you’re obsessive compulsive like I was, you don’t stop at just one. To be absolutely, positively sure that you’re pregnant, many women take more than 1 pregnancy test.
Since it took my husband and I a little while to get pregnant, I would say I took about 8 tests. Thankfully, only the first 2 or 3 were from the drug store.
That’s when I found it…
One day I was doing some shopping at my local dollar store (Dollarama) and as I was walking down the aisle with health and beauty items, I spotted a pregnancy test for $1 (the price has gone up to $1.25 now). I was shopping with my mom at the time and when I showed her the test, she said not to buy it. “You don’t pay $1 for a pregnancy test and expect it to give you correct results!”
Since I wanted perfect, 100% accurate results, I put the test back down and kept walking - but it bugged me the rest of the day, and so the next week, when I was in the area again, I broke down and bought not one, not two, but five dollar store pregnancy tests.
The Pro Care One Step pregnancy test from Dollarama states the following on their packaging:
- Over 99% Accuracy
- Use Any Time
- Positive Result in as Little as 1 Minute
- Easy to Use
And then I tried them out…
So, I went home and took one. Negative. The next day, I took another one. Negative again. I waited a week. Negative. I waited another week. POSITIVE! At least I thought it was positive. I wasn’t 100% sure because the line was incredibly faint, but I had a good feeling about it.
The next day I took my final test and it was positive again - this time, a little darker. I went to the doctor to confirm and about 8 months later, I gave birth to my son.
We tried again with baby #2…
Fast forward a few years and my husband and I are ready to start trying to have another baby. This time, I didn’t ask for someone else’s opinion on pregnancy tests from the dollar store. I simply went out and bought my magic number, 5, and when it was time to start testing, I brought them out.
This time, I saw a very obvious positive with the second test. After my doctor confirmed the pregnancy, I still had 3 tests left. I took one a week for the next 3 weeks, just for fun. I don’t know why I enjoyed taking pregnancy tests, but, as weird as I am, I did.
What everyone else is saying…
After talking with a bunch of friends that have kids, it seems like they all had also used dollar store pregnancy tests to determine they were with child - but they didn’t tell anyone about it because they were embarrassed. I’ll never understand quite why.
Whenever I’m at the dollar store and hear people saying “who would buy a pregnancy test from the dollar store?”, I always let them know that many people buy them, and that they do in fact work quite well.
Why spend more when you don’t have to?
Why would you pay $7-$20 for one single pregnancy test when you can pay as little as $1.25?
As thousands of women can attest to, dollar store pregnancy tests really do work. They give accurate results just as well as any of the big name brands do - the only difference is that they cost a significant amount less.
But wait, are they licensed in Canada?
Yes, the Pro Care One Step pregnancy test is now officially licensed in Canada. This means that Health Canada approves the sale of this item.
Although back in 2007 there was a warning from Health Canada saying not to use these items because they were not licensed for sale in Canada, they are now licensed and you can purchase them legally from Dollarama.
What about you? Do you buy pregnancy tests from dollar stores?
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