6 Surviving Babies Take Turn for Worse

The condition of the six surviving Frustaci septuplets worsened slightly Wednesday as the four boys and two girls battled lung and artery ailments common in premature infants.

“Their chances are still 50-50 until we’re out of the woods--after the first 72 hours, but these babies are all active. . . . They’re all fighters,” said Dr. Carrie Worcester, director of neonatal intensive care at Childrens Hospital of Orange County, where the infants are being treated.

Worcester said that the smallest child, called Baby F until he is named by his parents, has declined in weight by an ounce, down to 1 pound, and appears at highest risk. Although “some have a better chance” of survival than others, she said: “We are still optimistic about the survival of all of them. . . . There are no impending deaths.”

All six babies, born Tuesday morning, were suffering from an artery duct condition that floods the lungs with blood, Worcester added. The condition is expected in such tiny infants--all weigh less than 2 pounds--but worsened a severe lung disease diagnosed in all six shortly after their birth Tuesday, she said.

All six also developed jaundice, a yellowing of the skin caused by a buildup of toxins, indicating that the babies’ livers are not fully developed. Doctors said this is also common among premature infants.

Brain scans performed Wednesday on the infants showed them to be normal, Worcester said.

“If this were just one 28-week-old baby, it would be a piece of cake,” Worcester said. “With six, we’re making history. It’s much more difficult.”

Took Fertility Drugs

Seven infants were born to Patti Frustaci, a 30-year-old Riverside schoolteacher who had taken fertility drugs, Tuesday morning at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, which is adjacent to Childrens Hospital. The last baby, a girl, was stillborn, her death believed caused by the mother’s increasingly high blood pressure before birth.

Frustaci was in good condition and was described as “markedly improved” Wednesday in the intensive care unit of St. Joseph Hospital, said Tes Pane, director of obstetrical, gynecological and neonatal nursing.

“Patti is very thankful that everything is going as well as it is,” Pane said.

Frustaci was two days into her 29th week of pregnancy at the time of the birth, which was by Caesarean section. A normal, uncomplicated pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.

The babies range in weight from 1 pound up to 1 pound, 13 ounces and measure between 10 inches and 13 3/4 inches. All are officially listed in critical but stable condition, as they were on Tuesday.

The high school English teacher and mother of a 14-month-old son--who also was conceived with the aid of fertility drugs--will remain in the intensive care unit until Friday, Pane said, after which she will be allowed to visit the babies. She has seen videotapes of the surviving infants, but she has held only her stillborn daughter. Pane said the mother is getting reports on the babies from hospital nurses and from her 32-year-old husband, Samuel.

Worcester said all six were receiving Indomethacin, a medication to treat the arterial duct condition. Called patent ductus arteriosus, it involves an opening between the aorta and the pulmonary artery to the lungs. The opening normally closes soon after birth in full-term babies but not in extremely small premature babies.

“It’s a serious complication, but anticipated,” Worcester said.

Should the medication fail to control the arterial duct condition, surgery would be the next option, Worcester said, adding: “But I am not anticipating surgery on any of these babies at this time.”

The surviving septuplets also suffer from hyaline membrane disease, a common affliction in premature babies that causes their lungs to collapse when breathing because they lack a lubricant in the air sacs. Worcester said the arterial opening “complicates the lung problem.” But she added, “This is a disease we know gets worse before it gets better.”

Medical Treatments

All six remained on respirators and were receiving periodic blood transfusions to keep up their blood pressure, Worcester said. The infants also were being bathed in light as treatment for the jaundice. The lights help to absorb billirubins, a waste product that healthy livers would normally remove from the system.

The mother continues to talk about the stillborn infant, but Pane said “she is in no way obsessed with this. This is the normal grieving process. Remember, this is the only one she has been able to touch and hold,” Pane said.

Pane said the couple have indicated that “they do want some type of funeral . . . for the (stillborn) baby.” But she said no arrangements have yet been made.

“We knew we were going to be on an emotional yo-yo for a period of time,” Samuel Frustaci told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. But the salesman for an industrial equipment firm in Buena Park seemed optimistic about the babies’ chances for survival.

“They may be small, but they are not fragile,” he said. “They are breathing, their legs are moving, they’re kind of kicking like polliwogs.”

Frustaci said he visited the newborns again Wednesday morning, touching and stroking them. “They like a firm touch,” he said.

“It’s a very, very emotional moment . . . an inner thing . . . hard to put into words,” he said of the visit. “It gave me a feeling of closeness.”

He said each of the babies, all of whom have hair, look different. At least two of them have his wife’s “interesting earlobe,” he said. “I didn’t know if any of them look like me yet.”

Outpouring of Gifts

While his wife has been in the hospital since mid-March, Samuel Frustaci said their oldest son, Joseph, has been spending time alternately at the homes of his paternal and maternal grandparents. “He’s too young to realize what’s going on,” Frustaci said. “He’d rather be playing in the dirt and in the backyard than worry about how big the family is going to be.”

In the meantime, the shower of cards, letters, flowers and gifts has begun for the Frustaci family.

Disc jockeys at radio station KIQQ have promised to donate six bassinets for the surviving septuplets. A La Mirada woman had a bouquet of flowers delivered to Patti Frustaci, and a huge banner remains draped over the hospital’s parking structure:

“Congratulations! Sam & Patti Frustaci. Great Teamwork!”

Even Samuel Frustaci got into the act Wednesday. He called radio station KIIS-FM in Los Angeles to try to win a $5,000 prize for being the 25th caller. He wasn’t, but he said disc jockey Rick Dees promised a $1,000 donation to the Frustaci septuplet trust fund.

No formal deals for exclusive rights to their story have yet been made, Frustaci said Wednesday as he abruptly curtailed a flurry of interviews with media from around the world saying, “I’ve got to get some sleep sometime.”

Frustaci referred all inquiries to his attorney, Andrew Wallet, who was being deluged with calls. Wallet, a friend of the Frustacis who said his Beverly Hills civil practice includes many clients from the entertainment industry, indicated he also plans to begin soliciting baby product firms for possible endorsement contracts.

Firm Not Pleased

Meanwhile, the manufacturer of Pergonal, the drug that Patti Frustaci took last fall in the course of fertility therapy at Tyler Medical Clinic in West Los Angeles, said it was “not very pleased” about the multiple pregnancy.

“It’s not something we wish to happen. It doesn’t happen that often anymore and when it does, it’s not good news to us,” said Erol Caglarcan, spokesman for Ares-Serono Inc. of Boston.

Among patients treated with Pergonal who became pregnant, he said, 80% had a single child, 15% had twins and 5% had three or more babies.

A local fertility expert said that in three years of treating 20 to 25 patients a month with Pergonal, there had been no multiple births.

“It is important that people should not be afraid of Pergonal because of what happened,” said Dr. Sergio Stone, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the Medical Center at the University of California, Irvine.