Newborn Checks and Procedures

newborn checks and procedures

How to plan and advocate for what you want during your newborn’s checks and procedures.

Immediately after your baby is born and you are bonding skin-to-skin, a nurse is assigned to assess your baby and to provide an Apgar score at minute one and minute five after birth. Apgar stands for Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration.

You may notice they take a vial of cord blood to test, prick your newborn’s foot to test their blood sugar, perform a hearing test, weigh and measure your baby, do a Coombs test for anemia, bilirubin check for jaundice, take their temperature, count their fingers and toes, examine their organs by external touch, and check reflexes and hip rotation. Your newborn will then be tested for up to sixty or more conditions within the next forty-eight hours, varying by country and state. They will also need your consent or refusal for antibiotic eye ointment, vitamin K injection, and their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine.