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 immediately
after childbirth.

It is used to assess the condition of a newborn immediately after birth, i.e. 1 minute after
birth and 5 minutes after birth. The condition of a newborn is assessed on basis of 5
factors, namely heart rate, muscle tone, reflex irritability, breathing effort, and color.
Each of these factors is rated from 0 to 2, where 0 is lowest and 2 is highest score, thus
making a total score of 10.

Apgar score is reported in Arabic numerals, with the A of Apgar in upper case.
For example: The infant's Apgar Score was 5 at 1 minute and 7 at 5 minutes.

The five criteria of the Apgar score:

Score 0 Score 1 Score 2 Acronym
Skin color blue all over blue at extremities normal Appearance
Heart rate absent <100 >100 Pulse
Reflex irritability
no response
to stimulation
grimace/feeble cry
when stimulated
sneeze/cough/pulls away
when stimulated
Grimace
Muscle tone none some flexion active movement Activity
Respiration absent weak or irregular strong Respiration