Proportion and factors associated with Apgar less than 7 in the 5th minute of life: from 1999 to 2019, what has changed?

Abstract Although variation between observers in the assessment of the Apgar score, it remains a useful indicator of the general conditions of the newborn. This is a cross-sectional study based on population of live births in Brazil in 1999 and biennium 2018-2019. All declarations of live births (DNV) obtained from the Live Births System database were accessed. Frequencies were compared between groups using Pearson’s chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed. A statistical significance level of 0.05 was considered. We included 9.050.521 DNVs in our research. We found that 2,1% of newborns had 5th minute Apgar