FAQ

Pre-pregnancy wellness is the state of your health prior to getting pregnant (usually 1 year beforehand) that influences your fertility and the health of your future pregnancy and baby. Pre-pregnancy can also be referred to as the preconception period.

Any individual or couple who desires to pursue pregnancy (or undergo assisted reproductive procedures) in the next 12-24 months. But, you can always start earlier! Poplin testing is available for people ages 18 years old and up.

There simply isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to preconception health. Your pregnancy journey is unique and deserves individualized attention. That’s why at Poplin we give couples personalized health insights to help best prepare for a healthy pregnancy journey and a healthy baby. Plus, you can:

• Understand your overall health status before trying to conceive
• Discover important information you need to improve your health
• Optimize your health prior to conception can lead to improved sperm quality and virility

Certain biomarkers are influenced by the time of day, time of your cycle, or whether you have eaten recently. To get the most out of each test we recommend the following:

• Essential: any time of the month or day, no need to fast
• Plus: any time of the month or day, fast for 12 hours
• Premium: days 2-4 of cycle, first thing in the morning, fast for 12 hours

Please see our Biomarker Glossary

• Pre-pregnancy wellness status report
• 30 minute educational call with pre-pregnancy expert
• Ongoing access to digital app

Many people come to us after having done some prior lab testing, but we typically find that it’s not nearly as thorough as the Poplin test panels. This can vary widely by provider or testing company. If you’re interested in understanding how comprehensive your previous testing was, you can feel free to email us with the list of tests you’ve had performed in the last 3 months and we can share how this compares to our panels.

Even if you have had more comprehensive testing previously, it’s also important to know that your blood test results can change a lot in 2-3 months, depending on things like what you eat, how you live, and your environment. So, it’s usually best to analyze all of your results at a single point in time to get the most accurate understanding of your health. If you have further questions, please feel free to email support@getpoplin.com or schedule a 15 minute call with one of our pre-pregnancy educators here.

You can certainly try! In our previous clinical work as nutritionists, we frequently tried to get our client’s doctors to run testing so that it would be covered by insurance. Unfortunately, they were only ever able to get a couple of basic tests run. That was part of the impetus for building Poplin! The reality is that the current medical model isn’t set up to cover comprehensive wellness testing. In order for testing to be covered by insurance, you typically need a diagnosis code. Unless you’re having clear symptoms, your doctor isn’t likely to order broad testing. It’s not their fault, it’s just a function of the system they are operating in. So, if you’re looking to know exactly what is going to be tested and exactly what you are going to pay for it, our testing is a great option.

Not at all! Think about how much of your life you may have spent trying to prevent pregnancy. It only makes sense that planning for a pregnancy deserves some time and attention as well! Many of the tests that are included in preconception care can detect abnormalities that can be corrected before pregnancy (that’s the beauty of preconception testing!). In order to be able to correct these abnormalities, you need to give yourself time to do so! By completing your tests early, you give yourself the space and time you need to change your lifestyle, start taking a medication, or find an experienced healthcare provider to help you on your journey.

Unfortunately, many providers are still not aware of the benefits of preconception testing, and even the ones who are may not know which tests to recommend. As a matter of fact, this is one of the reasons why we started Poplin! We’ve worked with so many clients who had seen other providers before their pregnancy but were not given the appropriate tests or information they needed (and deserved!). This resulted in them learning about preventable medical problems after conception. After seeing woman after woman repeat this same story, we knew something had to change. As the first (and only!) online service to provide women with direct access to preconception testing without having to schedule a doctor’s appointment, we feel so fortunate to be able to offer you access to these tests through Poplin. We hope this empowers you to seek out the information you deserve so that you don’t have to go from doctor to doctor searching for someone who has experience in preconception care. No more waiting for an appointment. No more disappointing conversations. No surprise bills. Just the information you need, available at your fingertips whenever you decide to start your pregnancy planning journey.

Yes! Preconception testing is recommended for everyone! While certain tests may be more important for women with a personal or family history of certain medical conditions, the tests offered by Poplin are appropriate for anyone! In fact, a majority of women with abnormal preconception labs have NO symptoms, which is why it’s so important to get screened in advance of a potential pregnancy.

For our Premium panel, hormonal birth control will impact a small subset of the results, in particular some of the hormone values. If you elect to take the test while on hormonal birth control, we recommend that you discuss your results with one of our pre-pregnancy educators to understand which test results are impacted. If you are planning to discontinue hormonal birth control, we advise waiting 8 weeks until taking the test. Certain medications and supplements may also affect test results; please consult with your healthcare provider if you have questions about how your medication may affect test results.

This will depend on many factors including whether your tests are normal or abnormal, when you become pregnant, and if you’ve had any changes in your medical history since you had testing done. Most women will have at least some of these tests repeated during the first trimester of pregnancy. For example, pregnancy may change the results of a Complete Blood Count (CBC) so repeating these tests during early pregnancy may help your provider determine whether you’ve had any pregnancy-related changes. Other tests — such as rubella or varicella immunity and genetic carrier screening — are unlikely to need to be repeated if they’re normal because they don’t usually change over time. It’s important to have an ongoing conversation with your healthcare provider before, during, and after pregnancy to ensure that you receive the care that is best for you. To help with this, you can share your Poplin test results with your provider to initiate that conversation.

Absolutely not! In fact, it's just as important to make sure that you are replenished after a previous pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period, all of which can be incredibly taxing on the body. It is important to ensure that your nutrient stores, hormone balance, stress levels and so much more have been normalized prior to another pregnancy. Secondary infertility is on the rise and this information can help you address potential issues early and set you up for success when it comes to getting pregnant, having a healthy pregnancy and giving birth to a healthy baby - the second / third / fourth time and beyond.

No! Preconception tests are tests that are recommended before you try to become pregnant. Preconception tests are recommended for everyone. Fertility tests are tests that are typically only recommended if you’re having difficulty becoming pregnant. Fertility tests are not recommended for everyone. While abnormalities in some preconception tests (such as TSH and vitamin D) may decrease your chances of becoming pregnant (and therefore affect your fertility), these tests are not typically considered fertility tests. With that said, if an abnormality discovered by one of these tests is corrected, it may improve your chances of becoming pregnant!

Yes! There are certain abnormalities detected through preconception testing that can affect the health of your eggs and/or your uterus. If you’re planning to use an egg donor (using someone else’s eggs) but carry the pregnancy yourself (using your uterus), your health affects the health of your pregnancy just as much as a woman who becomes pregnant with her own eggs.

If you’re planning on using your eggs, but a gestational carrier (also known as a surrogate) will be carrying the pregnancy, preconception tests should be performed on the gestational carrier before an embryo transfer and on yourself before an egg retrieval. Abnormalities in certain tests have recently been shown to affect egg quality. Correcting these levels before you have an egg retrieval may improve the number of high-grade embryos that are produced. In fact, many of these tests are REQUIRED by state or federal law before you can have procedures such as IVF (in vitro fertilization).

Absolutely! Our testing can be done at any point during your pre-pregnancy journey. Our test panels may help identify concerns that are missed by less comprehensive testing approaches — and we have many clients for whom this has been the case! Whether you’re trying to conceive naturally or through assisted reproductive technologies, understanding your blood, immune, hormone, metabolic and nutrient status will help you identify underlying areas of improvement, which when addressed will optimize your chances of conceiving and having a healthy pregnancy and baby.

Yes! It's never too early to know what you're working with and find out your pre-pregnancy wellness baseline. We work with individuals across the spectrum of reproductive milestones, including those several years out from conception, those preparing for upcoming egg freezing cycles, those currently trying and those preparing for upcoming IUI or IVF cycles. We measure your whole health, which is relevant at every stage of the fertility journey.

You may cancel your order and receive a full refund up until you have your blood drawn. Once you’ve had your blood drawn, we are unable to cancel your order. Please email us at support@getpoplin.com for any cancellation requests.

Unfortunately, certain state laws in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island currently restrict consumer-driven ordering of online tests for residents of these states. We’re hopeful this will change in the near future. Please feel free to email us at support@getpoplin.com if you have any further questions. And of course, if you’re interested in working to change restrictive laws like this, we encourage you to contact your state representatives to express your concern.

Yes, you can! All of Poplin's test panels are registered with the SIGIS Eligible Product List (EPL), a list of eligible health care products that qualify for purchase with an FSA or HSA payment card. Because of this, you can rest assured that if you purchase a Poplin test panel, you will be able to submit for reimbursement with your HSA/FSA administrator and the transaction will be approved. Please email us at support@getpoplin.com if you need any additional documentation or have any further questions.

We currently do not accept insurance, but you are welcome to submit your test purchase to your insurance company to see if they will reimburse a portion of the purchase. In addition, if you have a health savings account (HSA) or flexible spending account (FSA), you can consider trying to use those funds. See FAQ below for further details on using your FSA or HSA funds.