Recalling the Apgar Score's Namesake - WSJ.com

Recalling the Apgar Score's Namesake - WSJ.com

A simple way to quantify a newborn's condition motivated vast improvements in neo-natal care:

"As simple as it was, the score transformed deliveries by requiring staffers to carefully observe and assess each baby, assigning a score of 0, 1 or 2 to each of the five categories. Then, as now, few babies get a perfect 10 one minute after birth, since most have bluish toes and fingers until oxygenated blood starts circulating fully. Some doctors became competitive about the scores, and many hospitals began repeating the test at five or 10 minutes to measure whether newborns had improved."

"Most importantly, babies who needed care started to get it, gradually spurring the development of newborn-size resuscitation tools, infant heart-rate monitors and neonatal intensive-care units. Thanks to all those efforts, and the philosophy that came with them, U.S. infant mortality dropped from 58 per 1,000 in the 1930s to 7 per 1,000 today. By the 1970s, it was said, 'every baby born in a hospital around the world is looked at first through the eyes of Virginia Apgar.'"