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Apgar Scoring System For Newborns
The Apgar score is named in honor of one of Dr. Virginia Apgar,
one of Columbia University's first female M.D.s (1933), and one of the
first American women to specialize in surgery. Frustrated by chauvinism
during her internship,
Apgar changed her focus to anesthesiology, which became a specific
and separate medical discipline thanks to her. Apgar's research on
anesthesia and childbirth led her to her greatest innovation: the Newborn
Scoring System---better known as the "Apgar Score"---for
assessing the health of newborn infants. Up until that time, babies at
birth were assumed to be in good health unless they exhibited some obvious
difficulty or defect: needless to say, internal deficiencies (e.g.,
circulatory or respiratory) could be missed, resulting all too often in
death. Because Apgar realized that "Birth is the most hazardous time
of life," she created a system for quickly and accurately assessing a
baby's health in the crucial minutes after birth. The intent of this
scoring system is to help identify newborns at risk of
complications. It is simple, repeatable (that is, different
observers arrive at about the same score), and predictive.
A score is given for each sign at one minute and five minutes after the
birth. If there are problems with the baby an additional score is given at
10 minutes. A score of 7-10 is considered normal, while 4-7 might require
some resuscitative measures, and a baby with apgars of 3 and below
requires immediate resuscitation.
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