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Previous births to the mother

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Previous births to the mother  (PREVIOUS births to the mother)


Births are also classified by birth order1 or birth rank1, e. g. first births, second births, etc. Birth order may be determined by considering only births of the present marriage2 or all previous births to the mother3. Birth order is generally based on live births only, but occasionally late foetal deaths (410-6*) are taken into account as well. A classification by confinement order4 or confinement rank4 is made in the same way as for births by counting all pregnancies which last at least 20 to 28 weeks, and reckoning multiple births as one confinement (cf. 603-4). Similarly a classification by pregnancy order5 or pregnancy rank5 is made by counting all known pregnancies. Women are classified by parity6, usually on the basis of the number of children born alive. In biological literature a woman is termed a primipara7 and deemed to be primiparous7 at her first confinement and a multipara8 or multiparous8 at subsequent confinements. A woman who has had no confinements at all is said to be a nullipara9 or nulliparous9.

  • 1. A distinction by order of births is made with multiple births, thus one twin is classified as being born before the other, no matter how close they come to being delivered simultaneously. Higher order births or subsequent births are births occurring after the last specified order, e. g. fifth and higher order births.
  • 5. The terms primigravida and multigravida respectively are used for women who are pregnant for the first time or who have been pregnant before. A primipara may bo a multigravida if one of her previous pregnancies has not been carried to term.
  • 6. In British medical usage parity order is determined with reference to the number of previous births and late foetal deaths, multiple births being counted as one.
    A woman who has not borne any live children is called a zero parity woman, a one parity woman has borne one live child but no more, and so on.


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