Polydactyly

Baby Born In Bay Area With 12 Functioning Fingers, 12 Toes

Baby Kamani Hubbard has six-fully formed and functional fingers and toes on his hands and feet. It's called "polydactyly" -- extra digits -- not an uncommon genetic trait, but Bay Area doctors say they've never seen a case so remarkable.

Born at San Francisco's Saint Luke's Hospital three weeks ago, Hubbarb seemed so perfect at birth no one noticed.

"Nurses and doctors, looked so normal they couldn't tell, they told me he was six pounds in good health, that was all they said," said Miryoki Gross, Hubbard’s mother.

But his dad Kris Hubbard noticed this spectacularly rare case of polydactyly: 6-perfect fingers on each hand and six perfect toes on each foot, which went well beyond a general trait that runs in his family.

This is pretty exciting. It seems as though there are some autosomal dominant forms of polydactyly... and it is likely that baby Hubbard will have offspring with polydactyly as well. Possibly leading to a new generation of artists and musicians!

I am reminded of two things.

1) Gattaca. There's a scene where the Black Mambo and Batman are listening to a pianist and she comments: that's a piece of music that can only be played with six fingers.

2) Elementary school. I knew a girl that had an extra pinky on one hand. We kind of made fun of her for it, but it was really unobstrusive. I think that this kid'll have a different experience because his extra fingers/toes are functional! Sure, he'll be different and therefore weird, but its cool to think that he'll also have supported parents, since dad had polydactyly also.

References:
Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man: Polydactyly. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=603596