A student asked Dr. Virginia Apgar how a newborn might be evaluated. She said how and then rushed off to test her idea.
After testing it on 1000 babies she presenteed the idea she presented it at a conference in 1952. The APGAR score caught on quickly.
A baby is given a score of O, 1 or 2 in five categories: appearance, pulse, grimace, activity and respiration.
Dr. Virginia Apgar came up with a simple way to measure the overall health of a baby at birth. The score laid the foundation for the field of neonatalogy.
As a result of the APGAR score and other advances,
US infant mortality dropped from 58 per 1000 to 7 per 1000 today.
The score came about indirectly because of sexism in medicine. Though Dr. Apgar excelled in surgery a mentor convinced her not to try to make a living. “Even women will not go to a woman surgeon” she was told. She went into anesthesiology, was passed over for a man to head the new department and threw herself into teaching and patient care. She was especially concerned about obstetrical anesthesia and what she saw there.
Watch a video of Dr. Apgar applying the score at WSJ.com/health
