Gravidity

Gravidity is the total number of times a person has been pregnant. It includes every pregnancy, regardless of outcome, and may include the current pregnancy if the person is pregnant at the time of assessment. Gravidity is used in obstetrics to summarize a patient’s pregnancy history alongside parity, which counts pregnancies carried to a viable gestational age.

In clinical terminology, gravidity is often abbreviated as G, and parity as P. Expanded history formats commonly use GTPAL: Gravida, Term, Preterm, Abortions, Living. This notation helps clinicians capture the full obstetric history. For example, a person who has had two pregnancies reach term and a current pregnancy would be described as G3P2 (with appropriate details added by the TPAL components). Terminology also includes nulligravida (no pregnancies), primigravida (one pregnancy), and multigravida (more than one pregnancy).

Gravidity is distinct from parity. Parity refers to pregnancies carried to a viable gestational age, whereas gravidity counts all pregnancies, including those that did not reach viability or ended in miscarriage or abortion. Tracking gravidity and parity supports risk assessment and planning of prenatal care, and helps convey a patient’s obstetric history in a concise, standardized way.

Notes on terminology can vary by region and charting system, but the core concept remains: gravidity is the count of all pregnancies a person has experienced, while parity reflects pregnancies carried to viability.