Dr Virginia Apgar was a notable physician who recognised the significance of having an easy and effective way of assessing a newborn infant. In 1949, she came up with key points in recognising distress in a newborn baby. After a few fine-tuning, she eventually introduced the Apgar score in 1952.
The moment an infant is born, a timer is set that beeps at one and five minutes. When this timer goes off, the newborn baby is assessed and a certain score is assigned. The score helps the midwife, physician, nurse, or whoever is assisting the infant to see whether the infant needs help adapting into the outside world.
When the assigned score at one minute is seven or lower, it means that the infant have gone through difficulties during labour that has reduced the oxygen content within the blood. However, there are also a number of infants with lower scores who completely have normal oxygen levels and simply get somewhat vigorous a little later.
Several mysteries surround what the score means. Parents usually become nervous thinking that a low Apgar score means the baby will encounter some problems either on the near future or later on in life. However, this is not actually the case, just as it is not true that having a certain high score eliminates the possibility of future difficulties. The only purpose of the Apgar score is to alert the midwife or physician if the infant needs assistance. Also, it allows the midwife to observe the effectiveness of interventions. If the score escalates, it means the interventions are working.
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