What Would You Do If Your Baby Had 6 Functioning Fingers and Toes?

I would be inclined to leave the child w/ the 12/12, but DH said no he would want amputation. I asked my 8 yr old what he would want and he said he would want only 10/10 b/c he wouldn't want to feel like an alien. I guess I think they should leave him alone and if as he grows older, then he wants it done...do it then.

I think that he is absolutely beautiful and perfect and was fearfully and beautifully created just the way the Master planned. The fingers and toes are fully functional and his hands and feet look perfect to me. It's not extremely noticeable because the placement of the 6th finger and toe is right next to the other finger and not off of the side of the hand where it often is. I think he is beautiful just the way he is. However, I do agree with a PP that said that he should make the choice when he is older. However, that would be a big change for him... almost a handicap... he'd be used to doing everything with 6 fingers. To him it might be the equivalent of us cutting off our pinky... (if they choose to do it when he is older) It's a lot to ponder. -Committed

I would not have them amputated, if they can be used, them why not let the baby use them? I wouldn't want to put my child thru any un-necessary surgery. Most socks aren't specifically made for 5 toes, shoes can be bought a size wider, mittens can sometimes take the place of gloves, adjustments can be made.

I would amputate. I think fear of surgery would result in your child being an object of ridicule for years and years. Having 4 boys -- I know how much something like that would be an issue and I wouldn't put them through it if it was preventable (no matter how much I would think my child was perfect, I would realize that the price they would pay for being "different" would be very, very high)/

A friend of mine lost his ring finger in an work accident. He went on to have surgery to remove the bone in his hand that lined up with the missing finger. Unless you take a moment to count his fingers, you don't notice that he's missing one. I don't think that I would consider amputation. I would just buy mittens instead of gloves.

Well, it's not quite as simple as you may think. My daughter was born with six fully functioning fingers on each hand and six toes on one foot. All of the extra digits were amputated before we even knew about her. I'm glad I didn't have to make the decision, because I honestly don't know what I would have done. Having said that, there are some significant issues involved with having something that unusual. The reality is that our society is based on people having 5 fingers and 5 toes. First a simple one: Gloves. Yes, kids usually wear mittens. But adults? For that matter, lots of hand tools. And shoes? It's not as simple as just buying wider shoes. The toes are wider, but the heal isn't. So shoes may NEVER fit correctly. Second: Base 10. Counting. Arithmetic. All of our mathematics are based on 10 - and children are taught to count, add, subtract, etc. USING THEIR FINGERS. Not only will it be more difficult for the child to learn, s/he will be shown as 'different' to his classmates whenever the class works on math, or anything that uses their hands. Third: Middle school and adolescents. Children are BRUTAL to each other at this stage. My son had a deformed ear and was teased mercilessly about it. His teachers never even noticed it! But it was very painful for him while he was in middle school. Fourth: Just because they look fine at birth doesn't necessarily mean that they function normally. This child sounds like he has either centralaxial polydactyly or postaxial polydactyly. Either of these conditions can be the most visible symptom of more complex syndromes. My daughter has centralaxial polydactyly, which is just one symptom of her umbrella diagnosis, Pallister-Hall Syndrome. While the most obvious symptom was the extra finger, the underlying physiology of her hands is not remotely normal. She has pretty good adaptive function, but the bones are very different and the joints do not function normally. There are many things she can't do, and she has very little hand strength. Totally unrelated to the amputations, she will have to have several more surgeries to bring the function of her hands as close to normal as possible. Human beings are not designed to have six fingers on each hand, and it would not be at all unusual for this child to have long term problems. On the other hand (no pun intended), I'm not real crazy about subjecting the child to unnecessary surgery. Waiting and letting the child decide may seem to be a good choice, but think about it. How would you feel about someone cutting off one of YOUR fingers? Even if you are embarassed, think of what it would take to adjust your hand function? Sadly the world does not see people with physical deformities as 'just perfect the way they are'. Not amputating the fingers is setting the child up for a lifetime of strange looks, comments from strangers, and attempting to adapt to a 5 finger world.

Not that he had any to spare, but my little boy lost a toe in an accident 2 summers ago. He will occassionally sit and look at his foot and tell me, "I miss my toe." I'm saying this because I just can't imagine at what age you would be old enough to decide yeah, let's get rid of that. I've read arguments on this forum about getting ears pierced and how much of an issue that is. We're leaving the lobes intact save for a hole and it causes all kinds of controversy! Let's not even start on the circumcision question! As far as the suggested benefit in typing, piano, or guitar performance, I'd have my doubts. Everything in our world is based on the norm of having 5 fingers per hand. As for "correcting" his "problem," which one of those fingers would be amputated? It appears he has 2 middle fingers, not 2 pinkies. I'm not for or against here. I don't know enough about this child's medical condition or abilities or anything else to even form my own opinion! Except for the part where I think he's a beautiful baby.

Tha baby is perfect the way he is, the fingers and toes are beautiful, what a special gift from God. I hope they will not go ahead and just amputate the fingers/toes. If I was his mom, I would wait and see - if he will want the procedure done later on, he can always do it.

My brother was born with two thumbs on one hand. It was amputated when he was two. He's still bitter about it and can still remember having the extra thumb.

Before i say this I will fully admit to being very lucky to have had kids in schools where teasing and terrorizing each other was patently not allowed, where kids with differences and disabilities. Yes it is a difference but I am not sure especially with what the Dr.s are saying it is a disability. How far do you go to save kids from teasing? I think instead of fixing your kid you need to fix the culture they grow up in. I KNOW it can be done, I have see it in my kid's elementary, middle and high schools.

I think the threat of teasing is a poor excuse to surgically alter your body. The sad fact is that kids will always tease each other. Middle school is brutal for everyone. I am 4' 11". I am so glad my mom didn't put me on growth hormones because I was the smallest kid in the class. Was I teased? Every day from the time I was in Kindergarten to... now. Do I care? When I was younger it hurt my feelings from time to time, but it made me special in many ways and I wouldn't trade it to be average for the world. Instead of looking at his extra fingers and toes as a deformity, perhaps they should be seen as a gift.

We are our children's guardians not their owners. We make choices for our children to get them to adult age when they can then make their own decisions. It is HIS body, it is not his parents'. He should be allowed to choose what he wants to do when he is grown. If he is being teased by other children it is the responsibility of the adults in his life to stop the teasing. Some children are born with ambiguous genitalia. I have seen a baby like that. You truly could not tell if it was a boy or a girl. They used to just chop it all off and raise them as girls. Society has smartened up and they are now allowing these children to grow up as they are born to make the decisions when they reach adulthood. It is my understanding that most are choosing to leave their bodies as they were when they were born. (Though I haven't read deeply about this so I am not authoritative.) Someone else mentioned circumcision. It is so sad that parents are given the right to mutilate their son's bodies without their consent. This really is the same argument. Permanently altering a child's sex life, risking surgery, sometimes even amputation of the entire penis, simply for whatever bizarre reasons parents and a (fortunately decreasing) portion of our society can come up with. Leave babies bodies alone and let them choose for themselves.

I teach first grade and I have to say, I don't think the teasing would be so horrible. Lots of kids have differences for many different reasons and teasing happens - but 6 fingers, while unusual, doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd get beat up on the playground over. I've taught children with far more visible differences (Only 1 leg, leg braces, developmental delay, low vision, etc.) and have found that kids are often protective of one another under those circumstances. The idea that kids are mean to each other is kind of over stated in my opinion. I agree with Lisa - you need to create a culture in the school so that it is okay to be different rather than trying to avoid difference altogether. Because that's just not realistic or even desirable.My stepfather was born with the opposite problem. He has only 4 fingers on one hand. It's not the kind of thing you even notice right away. And he learned to add just fine. :) Personally, I'd leave the babe the way he is.

My bio brother (adopted into a different family then I was) was born with 2 thumbs on one hand. One of them was amputated shortly after birth. His adoptive family was never told what the scar on his hand was -- so he grew up not knowing. I guess during the amputation surgery the doctor determined that the more functioning (and "normal" looking) thumb was easier to remove so that one was the one amputated. He was left with only one thumb but still a "deformed" hand. When I met him as an adult we went bowling on the first day. I noticed his hand and he noticed me noticing it. He tried to tell me he didn't know what it was from so I told him. I still remember the look of grief on his face when he realized his thumb had been taken from him. Samantha

I totally agree. I remember seeing a program that featured a boy who had double thumbs on both hands. Maybe it was his parents' attitude or his attitude, but kids did not tease him. They actually envied his funky thumbs. He had the extra thumbs surgically removed when he was about 12 and as an older teen said that he regretted having it done, because he wasn't special anymore. He was just like everyone else. So, there's another slant on it. I wouldn't touch that baby's extra special digits. Janet