How to Use the Apgar Score

Video Transcript

BEA ROWELL: Hi, my name is Bea. I'm a midwife here at Labor Of Love Birth Center. We serve ladies in the Tampa area who are in low-risk pregnancies and are looking for natural birthing choices. I was just here today to explain to you about Apgar scoring. Apgar score is something that's given to a baby at one minute and five minutes after delivery. It's a thing that you're not really going to notice us doing, especially at the one minute one. You're going to be so enthralled with holding your new baby and meeting him. The Apgar score is applied to five different things we're looking at in the baby and how it's responding to the new world that it's in. We're going to be looking at its heart rate, its respirations, its color, the tone of him and also the way he responds. A good Apgar score out of 10 at one minute would be six or more; and then at five minutes, we're happy if there's seven or more. We're looking at the heart rate to be above a hundred. We're looking at the respirations to be good and strong. A good strong cry is an indication of good respirations. We're going to look for the baby to be pinking up. He may still have blue hands and feet, but as long as he's pinking up that's good. But looking at his tone, he needs to be kind of moving his body a little bit, making some effort to move around. If he's really struggling and getting crossed and angry with the world and throwing his fists around, that's really good. For his responses, what we're looking for is a good cough or sneeze whenever we're fiddling around with the nose area. This is going to be a good, strong baby. If your baby should generally have a nine Apgar, don't worry that it's missing a point. It's very rare that babies get to number 10. If they do, they're high achievers already.