Thursday’s <a href="https://www.google.com/doodles/dr-virginia-apgars-109th-birthday">Google Doodle celebrates the birthday of Dr. Virginia Apgar, whose Apgar Score has saved countless lives. She was born on June 7, 1909.
Dr. Virginia Apgar, who would have been 109 years old today (she died in 1974), was the obstetric anesthetist who developed the Apgar Score test for the health of newborn babies that is still used around the world today.
The Apgar Score’s name is not just that of its creator — each letter refers to a part of the test.
Today’s #GoogleDoodle celebrates obstetrical anesthesiologist Dr. Virginia Apgar, who invented the Apgar score as a way to quickly assess a newborn's health → https://t.co/j7q4rv1yfEpic.twitter.com/FmdsoZNx2E
— Google (@Google) June 7, 2018
The Apgar test examines:
Appearance (is the newborn a healthy color or blueish?)
Pulse (is it above or below 100 beats per minute, or undetectable?)
Grimace (what response does the baby make when reflexes are stimulated?)
Activity (how much are legs and arms moving?)
Respiration (how strong is the baby’s breathing?)
The Apgar Score is what’s known as a “backronym” — the words were only chosen after the Dr. Apgar‘s test had gone into practice in 1952, in order to help people remember the elements of the test.
COOL: This morning's @GoogleDoodles honors Virginia Apgar (MPH '59) on what would have been her 109th birthday. As a researcher and maternal and child health advocate, Dr. Apgar developed the 10-point "Apgar Score" used to assess the health of newborns. https://t.co/7OV7sxNT4apic.twitter.com/YfVMhzsrL1
— Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (@JohnsHopkinsSPH) June 7, 2018
Each of these categories in Dr. Apgar’s test earns the baby between zero and two points, depending on the health of the response. The theoretical maximum is 10, but this is rare. An Apgar Score between 4 and 6 may mean some medical intervention is needed. An Apgar Score below four may mean resuscitation is needed. The Apgar test is conducted a minute after birth, and again four minutes later, in order to judge the effectiveness of intervention.
Dr. Apgar developed the test after noticing that, even though the general U.S. infant mortality rate fell between the 1930s and 1950s, it remained constant for babies within the first day of life.
Who was Dr. Virginia Apgar? She developed the Apgar Score, the first standardized method to monitor a baby's health after being born. 👶 Today, the Apgar Score is used throughout the world, and has saved countless lives. https://t.co/UaE1I3eCAfpic.twitter.com/M2LZO9fXuv
— HHS.gov (@HHSGov) June 7, 2018
Apart from developing her famous scoring exercise, Dr. Apgar was a notable advocate for universal vaccination in order to combat the rubella epidemic of the mid-Sixties. In her later years, she worked for March of Dimes, a non-profit founded by President Franklin Roosevelt that initially targeted polio but went on to focus on the prevention of birth defects.
Even before she developed the Apgar Score, Dr. Apgar had already become the first female full professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She received a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University in 1959, and was a director at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which is know known as the March of Dimes.
A true visionary, Dr. Apgar was an OB anesthesiologist best known for developing the Apgar score (used worldwide for evaluating the physical condition of newborns at birth) & served as a medical leader at #marchofdimes for 15 years. More about her legacy: https://t.co/6jNTTagwmfhttps://t.co/bXD8t1iaxV
— March of Dimes (@MarchofDimes) June 7, 2018