Normal hCG Levels by Pregnancy Week—and What They Mean

I spent the first trimester of pregnancy looking up new terms while realizing there was a lot of new lingo to wrap my brain around. Like many expectant moms, I pored over my lab test results for reassurance that things were headed in the right direction.

One acronym in particular that stumped me at first: hCG. (What is hCG and why was my doctor monitoring it?!) I soon learned, hCG stands for human chorionic gonadotropin. It can give you—and your doctor or midwife—some insight into how your pregnancy is progressing.

Healthcare providers sometimes keep tabs on hCG levels at the beginning of pregnancy for a few key reasons. Your doctor may want to see that your levels are climbing as expected. “We don’t look at a single number, but rather ensure the levels double every 48 to 72 hours in the first few weeks,” says Dr. Eran Bornstein, MD, director of the Center for Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Northwell’s Lenox Hill Hospital. Here’s what your hCG levels by pregnancy week mean, plus what higher or lower levels may suggest.

Key Takeaways

• Human chorionic gonadotropin, aka hCG, is a hormone that’s crucial for supporting pregnancy.
• It’s usually detectable around two weeks after conception via a blood or urine test.
• Levels will double every two to three days during early pregnancy and peak between weeks 8 and 12 of pregnancy.
• Once pregnancy is confirmed, your hCG levels by week of pregnancy won’t be measured, with a few exceptions.

What Is hCG?

Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a hormone that supports your pregnancy. “It’s very important in establishing and maintaining the pregnancy through helping with the placenta and development of the early embryo,” explains Dr. Christine Greves, MD, an ob-gyn at Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies in Orlando, Florida. And, yes, it may also be what’s driving your morning sickness and causing a few other early pregnancy symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Initially, hCG is secreted to help maintain the corpus luteum—a collection of cells that make the uterus a healthy place for pregnancy, notes Julie Lamppa, APRN, CNM, a certified nurse-midwife at the Mayo Clinic. Eventually, your placenta—the organ that provides oxygen and nutrients to your growing baby—will take over progesterone production and hCG levels by week will dip (more on that below).

Week-by-week hCG levels

Typical hCG levels charts will show what hCG levels by week can look like during the first trimester. Of course, take this information with a grain of salt. “Clinically speaking, as providers, we don’t even look at these [charts], nor depend upon them,” Lamppa says, noting that hCG levels in pregnancy are just too subjective. (Note that these values are counted from the first day of your last period.)

• 2 weeks: around 25 mIU/mL
• 3 weeks: around 50 mIU/mL
• 4 weeks: around 400 mIU/mL
• 5 weeks: around 1,500 mIU/mL
• 6 weeks: around 6,500 mIU/mL
• 7 weeks: around 20,000 mIU/mL
• 8 weeks: around 80,000 mIU/mL
• 9 weeks: around 154,000 mIU/mL
• 10 weeks: around 180,000 mIU/mL
• 11 weeks: around 210,000 mIU/mL
• 12 weeks: around 240,000 mIU/mL

Again, there’s a lot of variation in these numbers. “I’m 5 weeks pregnant, through IVF and my hCG level is at 13,000,” shares The Bump community member Tink8331. “I’m freaking out that I’m having twins, even though only one embryo was implanted.”

Standard hCG Levels by Week Chart

Wondering what average hCG levels by week look like? Check out the chart below.

When Is hCG Detectable During Pregnancy?

Urine pregnancy tests can identify hCG levels when they reach 20 to 50 milli-international units/mL (mIU/mL), while blood tests are positive at 5 milli-international units/mL, nurse-midwife Lamppa says. That typically translates to getting a positive urine pregnancy test around the time your period is due.

The body starts producing the hCG hormone about 10 to 11 days after you conceive, notes Dr. Kjersti Aagaard, MD, PhD, medical director of HCA Healthcare Gulf Coast Division and lead clinician at Texas Maternal Fetal Medicine. “Its claim to fame is that it’s the hormone that’s detected on both urine and blood pregnancy tests,” she says.

“It usually takes about two weeks after conception for hCG to be high enough in your urine to be detected,” Dr. Greves adds. For a blood test, the hCG hormone is usually detectable 10 days after conception. If you’re anxiously waiting for a big fat positive test result, try taking a test early in the day. In general, “first morning urine is recommended because it’s when the urine is the most concentrated, and therefore lower hCG levels can be detected more quickly,” says Dr. Melissa Goist, MD, an ob-gyn at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. If you get a negative, you can wait and try again. In a healthy pregnancy, hCG levels tend to double every 48 to 72 hours in the early days and weeks of pregnancy, according to Dr. Ross.

When measuring hCG levels, your doctor will refer to something called beta hCG levels. In a nutshell, beta hCG levels note the exact amount of the pregnancy hormone in a person’s blood, while qualitative hCG simply measures whether or not the pregnancy hormone is present in the blood, explains Dr. Sherry Ross, MD, FACOG, a board-certified ob-gyn and women’s health expert at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.

Normal hCG Levels by Week for Twins and Multiples

In general, twin and multiple pregnancies can have higher hCG levels than singleton pregnancies, according to Dr. Meleen Chuang, MD, obstetrics service chief at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn and Tisch Hospital. HCG levels for multiples may be 30 to 50 percent higher than those of singletons due to double the placental tissue, says Denise Castellanos, CNM, lead midwife at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center’s Women’s Health Pavilion in Laguna Hills, California.

That said, “there’s substantial overlap between the ranges," notes Dr. Chuang. “Because of this overlap, hCG levels alone cannot reliably determine whether someone is carrying twins or multiples.”

This is why ultrasound is the best way to determine whether you’re expecting a single baby, twins or more. Dr. Bornstein agrees that hCG is a difficult way to determine whether you’re carrying multiples. “Because the normal range for all pregnancies is so wide, you cannot diagnose twins by an hCG test alone,” he says.

Calculating hCG Levels: How and Why Do Doctors Do It?

Once a pregnancy test turns positive, there’s usually no reason to assess beta hCG level. “The overwhelming majority of pregnancies will never have a reason to check this,” says Dr. Aagaard. That said, doctors may measure blood hCG levels and, when appropriate, follow the trend over time, Dr. Chuang says. “In very early pregnancy, hCG often rises substantially over approximately 48 hours, but the exact rate of increase can vary, and not every normal pregnancy will show a simple doubling every 48 hours,” she explains. “We use serial hCG measurements in several situations, including when a pregnancy is too early to be seen on ultrasound, when a patient has bleeding or pelvic pain in early pregnancy, and when we’re evaluating for an ectopic pregnancy or an early pregnancy loss.”

Basically, the first level gives your doctor a baseline, while the second helps them determine if hCG is rising as expected or declining prematurely. The latter could indicate a potential pregnancy loss. Nurse-midwife Lamppa adds that if there’s the suspicion of an ectopic pregnancy (when implantation occurs outside of the uterus), the hCG level can be revealing. Of course, an hCG blood test alone isn’t diagnostic, and an ultrasound is necessary to confirm.

Another scenario that might warrant more thorough testing of your hCG levels in pregnancy? If you’ve conceived through in-vitro fertilization (IVF), your doctor might monitor your levels more closely, says Lamppa. In general, it’s about seeing a steady rise, rather than numerical goal.

Symptoms of Rising hCG Levels

The hCG hormone may be to blame for your morning sickness and other early pregnancy signs. Dr. Ross notes some symptoms of rising hCG levels by week include:

• Nausea and vomiting
• Fatigue
• Breast tenderness
• Dizziness
• Food cravings
• Intestinal changes
• Increased urinary frequency

“The rapid surge of this hormone directly triggers classic first-trimester symptoms,” Dr. Bornstein adds.

What Do High hCG Levels Mean?

If your hCG levels are unusually high, it might mean:

• You’re pregnant with twins or multiples. If you’re expecting twins or multiples, Dr. Greves says your hCG levels by week may be higher than if you were having a singleton. (But a high hCG level doesn’t automatically mean you’re expecting more than one baby—again, levels of hCG can vary by person and pregnancy.)
• Your pregnancy might be further along than you think. If you ovulated late or have irregular periods, your pregnancy is further along than you think, making your hCG Levels higher than expected for what you calculated.
• Molar pregnancy. This rare condition happens when abnormal tissue grows in the uterus instead of a healthy embryo, causing extremely high hormone readings.
• Other medical issues. Rarely, other conditions, including some rare tumors, can raise hCG. Your provider will look at the whole picture, including repeat testing and an ultrasound.

What Do Lower hCG Levels Mean?

Here’s what lower hCG levels could point to, according to experts:

• Your conception date was miscalculated. This is a very common reason. If you ovulated later in your cycle than usual, your pregnancy is younger than you calculated, meaning your hCG levels are exactly where they should be for a newer pregnancy. It could be “[normal] based on how far the pregnancy has advanced,” Lamppa says.
• Ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg implants outside the uterus (usually in a fallopian tube). Because the tissue can’t grow properly, hCG levels typically rise very slowly, plateau or fluctuate irregularly, remaining much lower than expected.
• Blighted ovum. A fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall, but an embryo fails to develop. The gestational sac continues to grow and release some hCG, but the levels will stop rising properly and eventually decline.
• Miscarriage. If a pregnancy isn’t viable or is in the process of miscarrying, hCG levels will plateau or drop significantly.

Suffice it to say, don’t panic if you learn your hCG levels are on the low side, Dr. Aagaard says. She adds that, for this reason, doctors and midwives don’t typically check beta hCG levels unless it’s deemed necessary. “It most commonly leads to more testing and increased anxiety,” she adds.

Can You Do Anything to Increase hCG Levels?

It’s natural to want to do everything you can do to maintain a healthy pregnancy, and it’s scary knowing that declining hCG in early pregnancy could mean a miscarriage. Unfortunately, since the hormone is produced and controlled by the body, there’s really nothing you can do to raise (or lower) your hCG levels during pregnancy, Dr. Ross says.

To Sum It Up

Determining whether your hCG levels by pregnancy week are normal can be confusing, especially since there isn’t a medically accepted standard. Basically, if your provider isn’t concerned with this, you shouldn’t be either! Of course, don’t hesitate to ask any and all questions, especially if they’re keeping tabs on your levels of hCG. Otherwise, experts say it’s not something you need to think twice about.

How We Developed This Article

Your hCG levels are just one element of early pregnancy that your healthcare provider may (or may not) monitor. To provide clear guidance on what hCG levels by week mean, we consulted with six ob-gyns and two midwives. We also scoured The Bump forums for real-mom experiences.

After editing, this article was vetted through fact-check and reviewed by our ob-gyn medical adviser. Learn more about how we ensure the accuracy of our content through our editorial and medical review process.

About the author: Korin Miller is a mom of four who, like many moms, obsessed over her hCG levels early in pregnancy. An experienced health and pregnancy writer and parent, Korin likes to add her personal experience to each article she writes. Her work has appeared in publications such as Women’s Health, Prevention, Cosmopolitan and The Washington Post.

Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such. You should always consult with a qualified physician or health professional about your specific circumstances.