Virginia Apgar Created the Apgar Score

Born June 7, 1909, Virginia Apgar had a brother who died young from tuberculosis. Another brother suffered chronic childhood illness.

These factors may well have influenced her determination to become a doctor.

Obtaining several scholarships, Apgar attended Mt. Holyoke College, earning a degree in zoology in 1929. She was also a gifted violinist and cellist, performing in the college orchestra.

Apgar graduated third in her class from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1933. She served a surgical internship at Columbia, but was discouraged from the field of surgery by Dr. Alan Whipple, chair of surgery at Columbia.

Whipple felt that Apgar possessed the energy, intelligence and ability to make a significant contribution in the field of anesthesia which he felt need innovations and improvement.

After another year of training in the field of anesthesia, Apgar returned to Columbia University and named Director of the Division of Anesthesia. She held that title for over ten years when she was appointed the first woman professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Apgar began studying the effects of anesthesia on a newborn baby after the anesthesia had been given to a mother during labor. Until that time, no method was used to evaluate a newborn's transition to life outside the womb.

At one minute after birth, five responses were measured: heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, reflex response and color. These responses were observed and then given points of 0, 1 or 2. The points were then totaled for a score.

The score was originally used as a guide for the need for resuscitation after birth. The same measurements began to be taken at five and ten minute intervals to determine how the baby responded to any necessary resuscitation.

After more research involving over 17,000 babies, the Apgar Score was established as a prediction of neonatal survival and neurological development.

The Apgar Score is now used worldwide and is credited with saving the lives of millions of babies.

Apgar went on to earn a master's degree in public health at the age of fifty. She devoted the remainder of her life to the prevention of birth defects. She was the director of the division of congenital defects at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis which is now the March of Dimes.

Apgar received numerous awards for her works and contributions. Among them were the Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Elizabeth Blackwell Award from the American Women's Medical Association and Woman of the Year in Science from Ladies Home Journal.

Apgar died August 7, 1974.

She was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp in 1994 and inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.