The Apgar score has long served as a rapid and effective tool for assessing the immediate physiological state of a newborn. By evaluating five key criteria—heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, ...

In medicine, inertia can be a strangely powerful force, but Virginia Apgar never succumbed to it. She brought incredible energy to her work in anesthesia, neonatology, and dysmorphology (the study of ...

The Apgar test grades infants in five areas, including skin tone. Babies of color score lower, and may be subjected to unnecessary treatment. By Roni Caryn Rabin Shortly after they’re born, infants ...

In the 1930s and 1940s, Dr. Virginia Apgar noticed something odd. Despite the US infant mortality rate decreasing overall, a high number of infants were still dying within 24 hours of birth. Part of ...

A standard screening test given to newborns minutes after birth is a less accurate predictor of infant mortality for Black babies than other children, a new study shows, but the authors said the Apgar ...

The birth of a baby is thrilling for parents. But the delivery room can be confusing with medical personnel and lots of monitors. A number of screenings for newborns are given right away, including ...

A 5-minute Apgar score < 7 was significantly associated with increased risks for in-hospital mortality, severe intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), retinopathy of ...

How important is Dr. Virginia Apgar to the modern practice of obstetrics? Here is the way the National Library of Medicine's website puts it: "[E]very baby born in a modern hospital anywhere in the ...

In his masterful book Better, surgeon Atul Gawande writes that in the 1950s, newborn babies in the United States faced great danger: "One in thirty still died at birth—odds that were scarcely better ...