The standard pregnancy tests you know are clunky, plastic devices, and they’ve been that way, without significant innovation, for decades. The innovations that have occurred in the pregnancy test field have primarily functioned to modernize the gadgets, digitizing them with fancy computer screens. While that may make them easier to read, it’s also made a product that was already hard to recycle even more environmentally unfriendly.
“Chances are, if you were born before the 1980s, your mom’s plastic pregnancy test is still somewhere here on earth in a landfill,” says Bethany Edwards, cofounder of Lia Diagnostics, a company committed to “revolutionize reproductive health.” To do that, they’re revamping the outmoded pregnancy test, to make the hormone-detection process more sustainable.
One of the biggest issues that drove them to shake up the old-fashioned model was that the life cycle of the product is so short. It only takes minutes to use a pregnancy test, but at such a long-term environmental cost. They decided to focus on a test that would be disposable and biodegradable, rather than recyclable.
That took a lot of research and development, including testing thousands of urine samples. “Anna and I have gotten probably way too much urine on our hands,” Edwards says. “Literally.” Couturier’s baby, now 16 months old, was first detected during their development phase. After thousands of urine samples, origami influences, and flushing tests using a specially raised toilet with clear PVC pipes (to track flushability) in Couturier’s basement, they generated a foldable and flushable pregnancy test.
In the end, Lia created a pregnancy test that’s simple, minimalist, and does exactly what it needs to do at one of the nerviest moments in a woman’s life. “They need to know an answer,” Couturier says. “They don’t need a computer screen, and batteries, and excess plastic, and glass fibers, and all this junk. Yes or no: That’s what you need.”
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