Which obstetric term refers to the number of pregnancies that have reached viability and resulted in birth?

• A. Number of births
• B. Number of abortions
• C. Number of fetuses
• D. Number of pregnancies carried to viability

Answer: (D)

The concept being tested is obstetric history terminology: how we count pregnancies in a patient’s history. Parity (the number of pregnancies carried to viability and delivered) is used to describe how many times a pregnancy reached a viable gestational age and resulted in birth. So the term that fits is the count of pregnancies that reached viability and were carried to birth, which is parity.

Why this fits best: parity is specifically about pregnancies that made it to viability and were delivered, not just births or terminations. It accounts for all pregnancies reaching viability and culminating in delivery, including term and preterm births, and even stillbirths, but not pregnancies that ended before viability. The other options don’t capture that concept: births alone count deliveries but not whether the pregnancy reached viability; abortions count pregnancies terminated before viability; fetuses would count the number of babies, not the number of pregnancies; and pregnancies carried to viability without regard to delivery would not reflect the actual birth outcome.