All About APGAR Scores

If you've had a baby born prematurely or in the NICU, you still might not have heard of APGAR scores.  Medical personnel use theses scores, taken at 1 minute and 5 minutes after birth, to determine what next steps if any need to be taken to stabilize a newborn. My wife was a NICU nurse and so she is very familiar with the scoring system and, in fact, it was one of the first things she wanted me to find out from our son's nurse.  You see, knowing these scores my wife, and medical staff, would know his health at birth (and due to the fact that my son had problems breathing when he was born, my wife was very interesting in his scores).

What is an APGAR score?

The APGAR score measure 5 categories: Activity (muscle tone), Pulse, Grimace (reflex response), Appearance (color), Respiration.  The newborn is given a score on each category - 0,1,2.  A perfect score is ten, but those are unlikely, even for term babies. You can find a full description here, including a definition of a 0, 1, and 2 for each category.

My son's APGAR scores:

1 Minute = 4

5 Minute = 8

As you can see my son's 1 minutes score was way too low... scary low. Knowing my son scored a 4, I read this from a baby center article that:

"If your baby scores between 4 and 6, he may need some help breathing. This could mean something as simple as suctioning his nostrils or massaging him, or it could mean giving him oxygen. If your baby scores 3 or less, he may need immediate lifesaving measures, such as resuscitation.

Luckily my boy pulled out of it just before the 5 minutes assessment!