Apgar score and reduced vision in children aged 3 to 6 years

We aimed to examine the association between the 5-min Apgar score and reduced vision in children 3 to 6 years of age. A total of 5834 preschool children aged 3 to 6 years participated in this school-based eye survey. Reduced vision was defined as unaided distance vision of 6/12 or worse in the better-seeing eye. The 5-min Apgar scores of the participants were retrieved from medical records. The overall prevalence of reduced vision in this population was 6.63 % (95 % confidence interval [CI] 5.99-7.27). In multivariate analysis, the presence of reduced vision was associated with a low 5-min Apgar score at birth (< 7 vs. 7-10; odds ratio [OR] = 1.66, 95 % CI 1.48-3.05) after adjusting for age, gender, parental history of myopia, maternal age, gestational age, and birth weight. In addition, both myopia and amblyopia were associated with Apgar scores of less than 7 in multivariate analyses. Children with 5-min Apgar scores of less than 7 were more likely to have reduced vision at the age of 3 to 6 years.