It is no secret to anyone that the birth of a baby is a serious test not only for mom, but also for himself. Indeed, in just a few seconds, the life of this crumb changes dramatically: for nine months he lived in his mother’s tummy and splashed in the amniotic fluid, and now he has met a new environment where the air is too hard for his delicate lungs and too cold for the skin. And it’s just scary for the kid to get into the unusual environment in which he will now live. One of the methods for determining the condition of a newborn in the first moments of his birth is the Silverman scale and Apgar scale, which will be discussed in this article.
Now - for himself!
Throughout the long months of pregnancy in the future mother’s tummy, the baby was provided with oxygen by the umbilical cord and placenta. But after birth, the baby can only rely on himself. Now he will have to breathe, warm himself, eat on his own. The moment of transition to this independence, new for the crumbs, is so fast that, unfortunately, not all peanuts can cope with it.
Some newborns require specialist help. In the case of its timely provision, the condition of the kids comes back to normal. True, some may not survive if serious resuscitation measures are not applied to them.
These important first seconds
It is in this short period of time, when the count goes literally for seconds in assessing the state of the little one, in the first moments of life it is advisable to use special scales. They allow doctors to make a quick, accurate, correct decision for a given situation and understand how much this baby needs specialized help and care. The most well-known and widely used in maternity hospitals are the Silverman scale, which is used to determine the severity of the condition of a newborn baby with breathing problems, and the Apgar scale, which was developed many years ago by the American anesthetist Virginia Apgar. It is through these two most important tools that you can make an idea about the health of the crumbs.
Determining the state of the baby on the Apgar scale
To objectively characterize the condition of the baby just born, doctors use the work of an American anesthetist. An Apgar score during the first minute of a baby's life controls five of the most important clinical signs: rhythm and heart rate, the nature of muscle tone and respiration, as well as skin color and condition of baby reflexes. Depending on how pronounced these signs are, doctors give a score in points for each of them: each of the five parameters receives from zero to two units.
The maximum number of points that can be put to the baby is 10. The results are usually recorded twice: the first - immediately after the baby’s first breath, to understand how he feels at that moment; the second - five minutes after his birth, to determine how the baby began to adapt to new, completely unusual conditions for him. If doctors performed emergency resuscitation measures, then the second assessment shows how effective they were.
A normal result is an Apgar score of 7 to 10; satisfactory condition among peanuts who scored 4-6 points (they need timely medical help); if the baby is gaining less than 4 points, resuscitation procedures should be carried out immediately.
Determining the baby's condition on the Silverman scale
In order to diagnose respiratory distress in babies as early as possible, the Silverman scale is used. The study is carried out immediately after birth, and then after two, six, twelve and twenty-four hours of life of the crumbs. Specialists observe how the chest moves, how much the intercostal space and sternum are pulled in, what is the position of the lower jaw, the baby’s breathing.
All these signs are evaluated, as on the Apgar scale, in the range from zero to two points. But there is a very important difference: when assessing newborns on the Apgar scale, the highest score is considered to be the best - two. And the more “points” the kid collects, the better.
The Silverman scale is used to evaluate a newborn in the same way, but in this case, the less scores the baby accumulates, the better, because this indicates that the severity of the manifestation of respiratory problems is small and can be adjusted.
What if a newborn SDR ...
If the baby was born prematurely, then it is likely that he may have SDR - respiratory distress syndrome. For this pathology, the symptomatology of a circulatory system disorder is characteristic: in a crumb, blood pressure decreases, microcirculation is disturbed, tachycardia appears. The doctor may detect some muffling.
With SDR, an increase in the liver of the child may be observed. Hypovolemia may develop, which often leads to fluid retention in the body and peripheral edema. The central nervous system can be inhibited, periventricular hemorrhages can be detected in the baby. And until now, doctors cannot answer the question of what is still primary - damage to the brain of the child or its lungs.
Help thanks to scores
So, we figured out the main thing: at the very moment when the time is counted not even for minutes, but for seconds, doctors use special scales to assess the condition of newborn babies in the very first moments of their lives. Thanks to these scales, people in white coats can very quickly make the right decision about how much the child needs specialized help.
It is the Apgar / Silverman scale that gives all the necessary information about what to do to neonatologists in a particular case. The timely provision of the required assistance will subsequently have a positive effect on the health of the child. A Silverman’s scale also provides the necessary information about the well-being of premature babies.