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The Apgar scale is a medical scale designed to determine the condition of a newborn baby in the first minutes of life. The lowest score is 0, the highest – 10 points. The scale consists of five grades, and the result of the test is the sum of the points obtained in them.
The Apgar Scale in Practice
The name of the scale comes from the surname prof. Virginia Apgarwhich presented it in 1952 at an international meeting of anesthesiologists. The acronym mainly refers to the development of English words for the characteristics of a child; each of them is scored from 0 to 2:
- A – Appearance, skin color
- P — Pulse, puls
- G – Grimace (Reflex irritability), reaction to stimuli
- A – Activity (Muscle tone), muscle tone
- R – Respiration, breathing
The individual features are defined as follows:
– skin color: cyanosis of the whole body (0), pink torso, cyanosis of the distal parts of the limbs (1), pink whole body (2)
– pulse: imperceptible (0), less than 100 (1), greater than 100 (2)
– reaction to stimuli (examination by irritation of the soles of the feet and insertion of a catheter into the nose, which immediately sucks up the remnants of mucus and amniotic fluid): no (0), facial expression and weak movement (1), coughing or sneezing and crying (2)
– muscle tension: no tension, general flaccidity (0), decreased tension, bent limbs (1), normal tension, independent movements (2)
– breathing: no (0), slow and irregular breathing (1), loud crying (2)
After summing up the results of individual features, the sum is read as follows:
- 0-3 – bad assessment – may indicate a serious threat to the child’s life and appropriate action should be taken immediately;
- 4-7 – average assessment – newborn may require airway clearance and oxygen administration;
- 8-10 – very good – no medical intervention required.
In order for the test result to be correct, tests should be performed on newborns in good condition (8-10 Apgar points) at least twice – in the first and fifth minutes of life.
In newborns born in an average condition (4-7 Apgar points) i severe (0-3 Apgar points), the test is performed four times – in the first, third, fifth and tenth minutes of life.
It should be remembered that the Apgar test result is not a prognosis of a child’s health, but only determines his condition in the first minutes of his life.
It is also worth emphasizing that newborns with poor results apgar they often developed normally in the following weeks. A similarly high score does not guarantee perfect health in the future.
Apgar scale in premature babies
Because premature babies are not yet ready for independent living, which results, among other things, in less reactivity and breathing problems, Apgar test result it may be less reliable with them.