A Miraculous Start to a Meaningful Life

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Carol Zaslow’s first meal was a single drop of breast milk delivered skillfully through an eyedropper in an urgent effort to keep this 14-ounce, painfully fragile wisp of an infant alive. Born at Cedars-Sinai three months premature on Dec. 6, 1945, this littlest of little ones was given a 1 in 50,000 chance of survival.

Carol’s twin sister, who weighed a pound and a half, died three hours after birth. While preterm infants weighing under a pound have much better odds of survival today—nearly 80 years after Carol’s birth—preterm births remain loaded with medical challenges.

After four weeks, Carol’s eyedropper feedings were replaced with a feeding tube that delivered 13 teaspoons of breast milk to her tiny tummy every three hours, around the clock. This liquid nutrition—and the fact that Cedars-Sinai was equipped with incubators for preterm infants and employed obstetricians and nurses trained in the latest scientific advances in caring for these babies—enabled Carol to become the 1 out of 50,000.

She not only survived, but went on to build a meaningful, purposeful life centered on family—husband, David Zaslow, and daughters, Tracy and Carrie (now both doctors)—and taking every opportunity to help others.

"Cedars-Sinai holds a special place in our hearts for all the care Carol received this year and since her birth."

Cedars-Sinai through and through

For Carol, who was referred to as a “miracle baby” throughout her life, Cedars-Sinai always felt like part of the family, intertwined as it was with her actual family tree.

Her father, the late Clarence Agress, MD, was a prominent cardiologist who founded Cedars-Sinai’s Department of Cardiology and its first coronary care unit, and served as chief of Cardiology at the medical center.

An accomplished biomedical investigator, Dr. Agress published nearly 100 research papers and is credited with pioneering the use of thrombolytic enzymes to dissolve blood clots in the heart. In 1994, the Dorothy and E. Phillip Lyon Chair in Molecular Cardiology in honor of Clarence M. Agress, MD, was established at Cedars-Sinai in recognition of his achievements.

Carol’s mother, Marjorie Agress, was a volunteer leader of Helping Hand of Los Angeles. Founded in 1929, Helping Hand’s initiatives continue to support Cedars-Sinai’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

As a teenager, Carol followed in her mother’s volunteer footsteps, serving as a Cedars-Sinai candy striper. A precursor of the Cedars-Sinai High School Student Volunteer Program, candy stripers were female volunteers who wore red-and-white-striped aprons reminiscent of candy canes.

A particularly joyous connection to Cedars-Sinai came when Carol and David welcomed their girls into the world: Tracy arrived first, followed six years later by Carrie.

“Carol made it clear that our children would be born at Cedars-Sinai. She wouldn’t go anywhere else. She only trusted Cedars-Sinai doctors,” says David, a certified public accountant who built a successful firm specializing in real estate income tax.

Honoring her meaningful life

In April 2022, Carol was admitted to Cedars-Sinai for surgery to treat mitral valve regurgitation, a progressive heart-valve disease. Several weeks later, she was readmitted due to surgical complications that proved untreatable. Carol passed away on June 10, 2022.

In recognition of her deep love of children and her core belief that happy, healthy kids will become compassionate, engaged adults who will shepherd and strengthen their communities, David, Tracy and Carrie created the Carol Zaslow Memorial Fund, which will support pediatric research at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s. Donations may be made to Cedars-Sinai in Carol’s name. Most proceeds from Carol’s and Patti’s last book, Gotta Have Heart, also will be donated to the memorial fund.

On Carol’s memorial web page, the family wrote: “Cedars-Sinai holds a special place in our hearts for all the care Carol received this year and since her birth.”

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First Mother’s Day without “miracle baby” mom

“We’ll definitely do something to remember her,” says Carrie, referring to Mother’s Day on May 14, which will be the first without Carol. “Maybe I’ll make her famous lemon Bundt cake, and I definitely will set aside some time to read a book. My mom loved to read.”

Tracy plans to honor her mother’s memory “by being together with family and sharing our favorite memories of her.” High on that list of cherished recollections is a moment from Mother’s Day 2022, when Carol was an inpatient at Cedars-Sinai. “I’ll never forget her radiant smile when her two granddaughters made a surprise visit and showered their grammie with big hugs,” Tracy says.

While David still sometimes expects Carol to walk through the front door of their home, he’s comforted by the fact that he was “blessed to find such a wonderful, caring, kind woman to be my wife. Carol truly was a miracle baby, and that blessing led to our wonderful, very accomplished daughters who were blessed with their own children—our five happy, healthy, bright grandchildren who bring so much joy. The odds were stacked against Carol, but look at the legacy she left.”