The Apgar score was devised in 1952 by the eponymous Dr. Virginia Apgar as a simple and repeatable method to quickly and summarily assess the health of newborn children immediately after birth. Apgar was an anesthesiologist who developed the score in order to ascertain the effects of obstetric anesthesia on babies.
The Apgar score is determined by evaluating the newborn baby on five simple criteria on a scale from zero to two, then summing up the five values thus obtained. The resulting Apgar score ranges from zero to 10. The five criteria are summarized using words chosen to form a backronym (Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration).
Read more about Apgar Score: Criteria, Interpretation of Scores, Backronym
Famous quotes containing the words apgar and/or score:
“Nobody, but nobody, is going to stop breathing on me.”
—Virginia Apgar (1909–1974)
“Gargantua, at the age of four hundred four score and forty- four years begat his son Pantagruel, from his wife, named Badebec, daughter of the King of the Amaurotes in Utopia, who died in child-birth: because he was marvelously huge and so heavy that he could not come to light without suffocating his mother.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)