Extra fingers, webbed toes....

Also known as Polydactaly and Syndactaly!

I had a friend reciently ask about her son's webbed toes. The pediatrician wants her to operate on them to seperate them.... so I though I would share what we have done, and not done.

Dory was born with extra fingers hanging off of her hands. We really agonized on how to remove them and when to remove them since we really did think in this case they would be a serious teasing problem for her later in life. In the end, we waited until she was just shy of a year and had them removed by a hand specialist under general anestesia.

Right Hand, back of hand and palm...

Left hand, palm and back of hand...

Note on each hand the skin tab connector, they had inside a vein, artery and nerve cells. The fingernails did grow. After birth the extra fingers grew right along with the growth of the other normal digits. After surgery in Febuary 18th, 2005 we found out that the fingers had fully formed joints but had no ligimants for movement.

This is how her fingers looked at birth. She often 'held' her fingers in her fists so that they were not always visible. Sometimes people thought she was holding something she shouldn't be, like bologna.


These are my toes, and the genes from which Dory ended up with extra fingers.
Notice on my left foot the two toes are not as webbed as they are on my right. I really thought until I was in kindergarten that everyone's toes were just like mine.... and since then thought that I just had the coolest toes. I have never thought of having them separated, nor would I want to. They have caused me no problems whatsoever at all.

Dory's left foot matches my left foot, but her right foot is even closer to the norm.

Random Picture

How about another random picture? This was in 2004 when Dory was still about a month old. Freshly scrubbed and shining asleep on mommy's chest. She is just now really starting to snuggle again at 22 months. I love it. And... yes... her one finger is off at a crazy angle. It was her 6th finger that was attached off the side of her hand by a skin tag. It was removed in Feb of 2005. It never bothered her being polydactyly. I kinda' miss them actually.