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Apgar score

The Apgar score was devised in 1952 by Virginia Apgar as a simple and repeatable method to quickly and summarily assess the health of newborn children.

The Apgar score is determined by evaluating the newborn baby on five simple criteria on a scale from zero to two and summing up the five values thus obtained. The resulting Apgar score ranges from zero to 10.

{| align=center border=1 cellspacing=0 !  !Score 0 !Score 1 !Score 2 |- align=center !align=left|Heart rate |absent||<100||>100 |- align=center !align=left|Respiration |absent||weak or irregular||strong |- align=center !align=left|Muscle tone |none||some flexion||active movement |- align=center !align=left|Reflex irritability |no response
to stimulation |grimace/feeble cry
when stimulated |sneeze/cough/pulls away
when stimulated |- align=center !align=left|Skin color |blue all over||blue at extremities||normal |+ bgcolor=#abcdef|The five criteria of the Apgar score |}

The test is generally done at 1 and 5 minutes after birth, and may be repeated later if the score is, and remains, low. Scores below 3 are generally regarded as critically low, with 4 – 7 fairly low and over 7 generally normal.

Low scores at the one minute test may require medical attention, but are not a an indication of longer term problems, particularly if there is an improvement by the stage of the five minute test. Certainly if the Apgar score remains below 3 for the longer periods 10 minutes, 15 mins, 30 mins etc., there is a risk that the child will suffer longer term neurological damage. There is also a small but significant increase in the risk of cerebral palsy. However, the purpose of the Apgar test is to determine quickly whether a newborn needs immediate medical care; it was not designed to make long–term predictions on a child's health.

Some ten years after the initial publication, the acronym APGAR was coined in the US as a mnemonic learning aid: Appearance (skin color), Pulse (heart rate), Grimace (reflex irritability), Activity (muscle tone), and Respiration.

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