Healthy Babies at Birth.  Newborn health check.   

When your beautiful baby is first born and put on to your chest for that important Skin to Skin contact and Breastfeed, the Midwives are assessing your baby to ensure it is healthy and adapting to life outside of the Uterus.

These assessments include:

The APGAR score is assessed at 1, 5 and 10 minutes.

It is a score out of 10.

A: Appearance

P: Pulse

G: Grimace

A: Activity

R: Respiration.

A score of 8 and above equals a healthy baby. A score less than this may mean your baby requires extra support to adapt to its new environment.

Following this initial assessment, Babies are offered other tests that include:

Hearing screen

Temperature

Weight, length and Head circumference.

Sucking reflex, Grasp reflex

Passed Urine and Stool.

New born screen blood test (For metabolic disorders)

Hepatitis B immunisation and Vitamin K for Blood clotting.

The above tests are recorded in the Baby’s health record or ‘Blue Book’