ABSTRACT
With an elective Caesarean section following a normal pregnancy, a paediatrician may or may not be in attendance, and in a vaginal delivery at the conclusion of a low-risk pregnancy it would be unusual for a paediatrician to be present. In the absence of the paediatrician, it may fall on the anaesthetist, the midwife or the obstetrician to resuscitate a depressed newborn infant. A 5-minute Apgar Score was added later and proved to provide important prognostic information, as discussed below. A paediatrician, if in attendance, can give full attention to the newborn baby's condition. After its publication, the Apgar Score rapidly became the standard by which the condition of the newborn baby at the moment of birth was judged throughout the world. Today, in the words of an anonymous doctor, 'Every baby born in a modern hospital anywhere in the world is looked at first through the eyes of Virginia Apgar.'.
