Today, we are going to talk about Virginia Apgar, a woman who changed the history of medicine with a simple thing. In the middle of the 20th century, when a baby was born in a hospital, there was no clear way to know if a baby was healthy or if they needed urgent help. However, Virginia Apgar invented a machine with no advanced technology: a scoring system that has saved millions of lives and is still used in every hospital birth around the world today. So, let’s learn more about this woman.
Who was Virginia Apgar?
Virginia Apgar was born in 1909 in Westfield, New Jersey. Since she was a child, she was an active and curious person (she played the violin, did exercise, and wrote articles at school). Soon, she decided to study medicine.
She went to the University of Columbia and graduated in 1933 as one of the top students in her class. Her dream was to become a surgeon, but her mentor, Allen Whipple, told her at that time surgery wasn’t a welcoming field for women. So, he suggested she specialize in anesthesiology instead.
Delivery room
In the 40s and the beginning of the 50s, there was no clear protocol to evaluate a baby right after they were born, but Virginia Apgar understood how the body reacted under stress and how medication used during childbirth influenced both the mother and the baby. She realized that many babies showed early signs of suffering that weren’t detected properly.
The test
To solve this issue in the delivery room, in 1953, Virginia Apgar introduced a scoring table based on five basic observations made one minute after birth:
- Appearance (skin color)
- Activity (muscle tone)
- Respiration (breathing effort)
- Pulse (heart rate)
- Grimace response (reflexes)
Each category is scored with 0, 1, or 2 points and the total score ranges from 0 to 10. This number quickly tells medical staff whether the baby is in good condition or needs immediate medical attention. A higher score indicates that the newborn is doing well and a lower score signals that urgent care may be required.
Today, no hospital birth takes place without someone announcing the baby’s Apgar score.
How this test changed medicine
At the beginning, some doctors thought the system was too simple and others didn’t trust it because it came from an anesthesiologist creating guidelines for newborn care. However, Virginia Apgar worked with specialists to show that the scores were connected to measurable factors such as oxygen levels in the blood, blood acidity, and the type of anesthesia used during delivery.
One important finding was that certain anesthetic gases, such as cyclopropane, could lower oxygen levels in the baby’s blood. This reduced Apgar scores and increased the risk of death. These discoveries led to changes in obstetric practices and safer childbirth procedures.
Beyond the Apgar score
In 1959, Virginia Apgar left the University of Columbia to study public health at Johns Hopkins University. She later took on an important leadership role at March of Dimes, where she focused on research into congenital disabilities and promoted vaccination campaigns, especially after the 1964 rubella epidemic.
She also taught teratology at Cornell University and medical genetics at Johns Hopkins. Over her career, she published more than sixty scientific articles and wrote a book about newborn health.
As we previously mentioned, she was a curious and active child, and as an adult too. For example, she built musical instruments, played golf, flew small airplanes, and gave lectures across the country.
In 1974, Virginia Apgar died at the age of 65 after a long liver illness. Her legacy, however, continues in every delivery room around the world.