Newborn Assessment

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For decades newborns have gone through screening and assessments to determine where they are health wise after birth. The screening and assessments not only worry about the immediate moment, but also look for possible presence of disorders that could affect the newborn in the future. There are a number of different assessments and scales used after a newborn is born. The neonatal assessments and scales range from assessing behavior to determining whether there is a possible medical condition that could arise later in life for the infant. The screening and assessments are necessary, even if not all of them are completed there are some that will be done automatically after birth. The first assessment that infants go through is the Apgar scale. …show more content…

One such assessment is the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS), which assesses the newborns reflexes, muscle tone, arousal states, as well as responsiveness to physical and social stimuli (Berk, 2008). From this assessment other assessments have been developed. One of the assessments that was developed based off of the NBAS is the Assessment of Preterm Infants Behavior (APIB). The APIB is used as a behavior tool designed to document the spectrum of full-term as well as preterm newborn infants’ neurobehavioral functioning (Als, Butler, Kosta & McAnulty, 2005). As time progressed the test was modified to include a variety of responses that went from motor to neurobehavioral …show more content…

This is called newborn screening. Within newborn screening there three test normally given. This screening occurs not long after birth and can provide details about developmental, genetic and metabolic disorders. Two test completed in the screening are for hearing loss and for critical congenital heart disease (CCHD). The hearing test is completed by placing either a tiny earpiece of microphone in the infants’ ear with a sound playing to see whether the infant responds or not. Another way the test is given is by using tiny earphones and electrodes that are placed on the infant’s head to detect the brains response to sound (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2015). The other tests that may be performed is the CCHD screen which the amount of oxygen in an infant’s blood is measured. In order to do this a sensor is placed on the infants’ skin for a couple of minutes, while the sensor measures the level of oxygen in the blood. Within in newborn screening there is also another tests which is the most important

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