APGAR Score Calculator — Newborn 1 & 5 Minute

The APGAR score is a rapid, structured way to describe a newborn's condition in the first minutes of life. It was introduced by the anaesthesiologist Dr Virginia Apgar in 1953 and is now defined by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Committee Opinion No. 644. The name is a backronym for its five signs, each scored 0, 1 or 2:

• A — Appearance (skin colour): blue/pale all over (0) / body pink with blue extremities, i.e. acrocyanosis (1) / completely pink (2).
• P — Pulse (heart rate): absent (0) / below 100 bpm (1) / 100 bpm or more (2).
• G — Grimace (reflex irritability to stimulation): no response (0) / grimace or feeble cry (1) / cough, sneeze or vigorous cry (2).
• A — Activity (muscle tone): limp/flaccid (0) / some flexion of the extremities (1) / active motion, well flexed (2).
• R — Respiration (breathing effort): absent (0) / slow or irregular, weak cry (1) / good, strong cry (2).

The total is APGAR = Appearance + Pulse + Grimace + Activity + Respiration, ranging from 0 to 10. There is no weighting and no arithmetic beyond adding the five points — so this tool cross-checks every result through a second independent code path and only shows the score once the two agree.

Each total maps to a condition band published in AAP/ACOG No. 644:

• Reassuring (7–10) — a well newborn; routine care and continued observation.
• Moderately abnormal (4–6) — supportive care, close observation, reassess frequently.
• Low (0–3) — critically depressed; resuscitation, led by heart rate and breathing, should already be under way.

Timing matters. The APGAR is recorded at 1 and 5 minutes after birth. If the 5-minute total is below 7, the guideline advises repeating the score every 5 minutes up to 20 minutes, documented alongside ongoing resuscitation. Two cautions are built into the tool: the score never delays resuscitation — that is driven by heart rate and breathing and started immediately — and the score alone does not predict an individual infant's long-term neurologic outcome, so it should not be used to diagnose birth asphyxia.

• AAP Committee on Fetus and Newborn & ACOG Committee on Obstetric Practice. The Apgar Score. Committee Opinion No. 644. Pediatrics 2015;136(4):819–822 (component anchors and band cut-offs)
• Apgar V. A proposal for a new method of evaluation of the newborn infant. Curr Res Anesth Analg 1953;32(4):260–267 (original scoring system)
• World Health Organization. Guidelines on Basic Newborn Resuscitation. Geneva: WHO; 2012 (escalation, not delay, for a persistently low score)

The component anchors and condition band cut-offs on this page were last cross-checked against these sources on 2026-07-16. This tool is for education and reference only; it is a scoring aid, does not provide medical advice, and does not replace neonatal assessment or resuscitation protocol by a qualified clinician.