Obstetrics Terminology

Obstetrics is that specialty of medicine, which is concerned with the care of women during the period of pregnancy, parturition, and delivery. The obstetrical history of a patient is put in abbreviated form with the use of GPA terminology, where in the GPA stands for G-gravid, P-para, and A-abortus.

The alphabets G, P, A along with Arabic numerals are used to describe the obstetric history of patient. If the patient is gravida 2, it is transcribed as G2 and similarly if the patient has aborted once, it is transcribed as 1. Thus, for a patient who is gravida 3, para 2 and aborted 1, the GPA is given as G3, P2, A1. The G, P, A are separated by commas and no space is left between the alphabet and Arabic numeral.

However, one can always spell out the GPA terms instead of writing in abbreviated form. So when these terms are spelled out, a space is given between the terms and the Arabic numeral.

For example: gravida 3, para 2, abortus 1.

How to transcribe, abbreviated or spell it out? Well, the golden rule is to transcribed Ad verbatim. If dictated G2, transcribe as G2 and if spelled out the gravida 2.

Station:

It is transcribed by using a + or - sign preceding the numeral 1 to 5 without any space in between.

For example: The cervix was 5 cm dilated at +4 station.

Station denotes the degree of descent of the presenting part of the fetus through the maternal pelvis during the period of delivery. The base is taken at the point through ischial spine through which an imaginary plane is drawn and is designated as 0. Presentation of the fetus above or below this plane is then given reference values from -5 to +5, the distance above or below this is mentioned from -5 to +5 respectively in cm.