APGAR Tests and Scoring

The APGAR test is used for assessing newborns.
You should assess a newborn at 1 minute and 5 minutes after delivery.

Judge each of the following categories on a scale of 0-2. If your total is above 7, its considered normal; below 3 is critically low.
Appearance (skin color)
Pulse (heart rate)
Grimace (irritability)
Activity (muscle tone)
Respiration (work of breathing)

How Each Section is Scored

Appearance (skin color) - Assign the following points based on your finding:
2 - Pink
1 - Chest and abdomen pink, extremities blue
0 - Blue all over

Pulse (heart rate) - Assign the following points based on your finding:
2 - HR greater than 100
1 - HR between 60 and 100
0 - HR less than 60

Grimace (irritability)
2 - Coughs, cries and jerks away when stimulated
1 - Weak cries, irritated face, not very angry when poked
0 - No response to stimulation

Activity (muscle tone)
2 - Lots of active movement
1 - Some flexion of the extremities
0 - No movement

Respiration (breathing)
2 - Strong and regular respiration (strong cry is a good indicator of strong respiration.)
1 - Weak or irregular respiration
0 - Not breathing

So you just assisted in a home delivery. You are doing your 1 minute APGAR assessment. The baby is pink all over, HR 95, is highly irritated when you mess with him, moved around actively with good muscle tone, and is crying his heart out and breathing well. What do you document your apgar score to be here?

Lets break it down by section:
Appearance - 2( pink color) , Pulse - 1 (baby's HR is between 60 and 100), Grimace- 2 (very irritated), Activity -2 (good tone), Respiration -2 (strong cry)

So the total APGAR score for this newborn would probably be 9. Get it?

The APGAR score doesn't hold a lot of correlation for the long term health of the child, but its a decent tool for measuring the degree of sucess of your resuscitation efforts. If my 1 minute apgar was 3, and I started an adjunct airway, performed positive pressure ventilation with oxygen... my 5 minute APGAR could be really useful in letting me know how my resuscitation efforts are doing.

Remember that you're going to be wound up when assisting in the delivery of a newborn. Just remember to suction, dry, stimulate and assess. That's mostly it for a normal pregnancy. Always document your 1 and 5 minute APGAR scoring in your patient reports.

Some people learn best with silly videos. This one takes 5 minutes and explains it well.

 

 

Examples

This is what newborns should look like!

 

 

 

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