Health tests given to babies right after they are born can reveal future school success. A study of 877,000 teenagers in Sweden compared school performance with their scores on the Apgar test given at birth.
Apgar is a test that rates the health of newborns on a scale of one to 10 and estimates how much medical care the baby will need. Researchers have established a link between an Apgar score below seven and lower intelligence, the Daily Mail reports.
Dr. Andrea Stewart, an obstetrician at Helsingborg Hospital in Sweden, said that the Apgar score in itself does not lead to lower cognitive abilities. "Reasons that cause a lower Apgar score (including choking, premature birth, drug-addicted mothers, infections) can have an impact on future brain function," he said. The study will be published next month in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
What is the Apgar test?
As soon as the baby is born, the stopwatch is turned on and at the end of the first minute, the vitality assessment is performed. After five minutes, the assessment is repeated once more, and can be done next, 10 and 30 minutes after birth.
Five parameters are evaluated, with points from zero to two, and the sum of these points gives the "Apgar score", i.e. the baby's grade at birth. Those parameters are:
• skin color
• breathing
•heart action
•muscle tone
•reflex excitability
Healthy newborns are assessed with an optimal score of 8 to 10. An Apgar score of seven to five is given to newborns born in moderate hypoxia, i.e. reduced oxygen flow. An Apgar score of 4 or less is a condition of severe hypoxia of the newborn.
The Apgar score in the first minute of life provides valuable data for the evaluation of the newborn's condition at birth and enables retrospective diagnosis of intrauterine and intrapartum fetal hypoxia.
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