Seen from the Very First Minute

In 1952, at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, Dr. Virginia Apgar recognized a troubling pattern. In delivery rooms across America, medical attention focused almost entirely on the mother after birth, while newborns were often set aside with little systematic evaluation. Distress in infants went unnoticed until it was too late. Apgar, a pioneering anesthesiologist, refused to accept this.…