Para meaning.

• A. Total pregnancies
• B. Absence of menses
• C. Number of births lost
• D. Number of >20 week births

Answer: (D)

Parity (Para) tracks how many pregnancies have progressed to a viable gestational age and resulted in a birth. The typical viability threshold used is about 20 weeks. So Para reflects the number of pregnancies that reached beyond that point and produced a birth, whether the baby was live or stillborn. It does not count pregnancies that ended before viability, and it counts per pregnancy, not per baby in a multiple birth (one pregnancy with twins still counts as one Para). For example, a woman with one full-term birth and one early miscarriage before viability would have Para = 1. If two pregnancies reach viability and result in births, Para = 2. This is why the correct idea is the number of births after 20 weeks.