Objective  To investigate the risk factors of hypertension and the relationship between parity and hypertension incidence among rural parous women in Suzhou Industrial Zone of Jiangsu province.

  Methods  We selected 2 222 rural parous women aged ≥ 35 years in Suzhou Industrial Zone with random cluster sampling and conducted a physical examination and face-to-face questionnaire survey to collect demographic and healthy information among the participants between July and November 2013. Logistic regression analysis was adopted to assess the risk of hypertension associated with parity.

  Results  The average age of the women was 54.17 ± 9.73 years and 64.63% of the women had only one parity. For the women, the unadjusted parity-related odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval 95%CI) of hypertension was 2.07 (95%CI: 1.84 – 2.34). The results of multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that at older age (OR = 1.10, 95%CI:1.08 – 1.13), with overweight/obesity (OR = 2.27, 95%CI: 1.84 – 2.80), having family history of hypertension (OR = 2.21, 95%CI: 1.77 – 2.76), with dyslipidemia (OR = 2.35, 95%CI: 1.70 – 3.26), and suffering from diabetes (OR = 1.40, 95%CI:1.14 – 1.72) were the risk factors of hypertension. After adjusting for confounder factors, no increased hypertension risk related to parity was observed among the parous women (OR = 0.95, 95%CI: 0.79 – 1.14).

  Conclusion  Parity may have no effect on hypertension risk among rural parous women.