The babies of infected mothers were not themselves diagnosed with infections, Grether said, but they were " very sick " at birth, typically receiving low Apgar scores ( a measure of a newborn's overall health and vigor ), having seizures and low blood pressure, and often needing breathing tubes to aid in respiration.
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He vigorously propagated the work of Dr . Virginia Apgar, a pediatrician and anesthesiologist at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center who died in 1974, and helped win general acceptance of what is now known throughout the world as the Apgar score, which lets pediatricians assess the health of a child within five minutes of birth.
