APGAR score
Have you heard of APGAR?
This is a scored “assessment” that is given to your newborn baby at 1 minute after birth and then again at 5 minutes.
Your care provider is assessing 5 areas
Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration. Scored out of 10, each area of assessment is ranked 0 to 2 points.
It is important that the APGAR score is not assessed until one minute to give baby time to adjust. Rarely does a newborn get a 10 because they are still transitioning to newborn breathing and circulation. Often, a perfectly healthy newborn’s feet and hands will stay bluish for the first hour or so while their extremities perfuse.
It’s common for a healthy Newborn’s feet and hands to be a bit bluish for the first hour or so
Any score over 7 is considered “healthy”. A lower score may simply mean that your baby is still adjusting to life outside of the womb and needs some monitoring.
Fun Fact:
This score was devised by a female obstetric anesthesiologist in 1952. Her name was Dr. Virginia “Ginny” Apgar! Honestly, She seems like she was quite a spitfire!
She had some great quotes:
“Nobody, but nobody is going to die on me!” (She carried resuscitation equipment with her at all times!)
“It's just that I haven’t found a man who can cook yet.” on why she never married.
"Women are liberated from the time they leave the womb.” Apparently, she was quite independent and a trailblazer from early on in childhood.