I have a young woman going to a dr. for birth control in 1973. She is already pregnant, but doesn't know it. If the dr. runs a pregnancy test on her, how soon will the results be ready? Will the dr. be able to tell her right away? If she has to wait, how much time is there between the test and the results? Thanks for any help!
According to this page, there was a test in the early 1970's that took only 2 hours in the lab. Of course, most doctor's offices didn't have labs, and so there would be time spent sending a urine sample out, time waiting for the test to be performed, etc. I was a kid back in the 70's, and I remember "fast" test results coming back from the doctor's in about three days. A week wasn't considered overlong. So there's a lot of room for you to tailor the situation to your story. If a woman has a pregnancy test done at a hospital, say, with a full lab, and someone willing to rush her test through, she could know quite quickly. If she goes to a poky little clinic somewhere far away from the closest lab, or if the lab is especially busy, she could plausibly wait some days.
Thank you! My character is going to a regular OB/GYN office in a medium sized city. She would be considered quite ordinary, so there would be no special "rush" or any effort to fast track her test. Very helpful - thanks again.
