Small hand/fingers

My baby girl was born by C section on October 19th. She was born absolutly healthy and beautiful.. the only thing was that she was born with her left hand just slightly smaller then her right hand as well her middle and ring finger barely grew. The doctors didnt give me much insite to this... they did do x ray at hospital but i never heard anything back regarding them. mY family doctor is getting her an appointment at some plastics place i believe at sick kids hospital. Has anyone else had this happen or know if it has a name, or what they do for this if they can at all? she has full movement in the hand, just tiny tiny fingers...


thanks for any replies.:babygirl::help:

Hi Trisha's Mummy and welcome to BellyBelly. I know how you're feeling right now. I have 3 of my 4 children with a condition called Brachdactyly type A1 - which is a congenital shortening of the digits (they only have two bones in their fingers instead of 3, and only one joint) and their hand is smaller than it normally would be. My youngest child is unaffected by the condition. My husband also has the condition, as does his Mother. To me, it does sound like this is what your little one has, but the condition does have different variations, so the exact type that your DD has would be different to the one my Dh and children have because only some of her fingers are affected by it.

My Dh and children have faced no limitations at all because of it and lead full and normal lives, although somethings that require a 'normal' handspan are a little harder at times but still managable.

Not many Dr's have seen it and when our first child was born and he had the condition, our Dr had never seen it and so at 2 days old he was sent for full body x-rays which revealed that he only had 2 bones in each finger. We were then referred to a paediatrician who took photos of both my DH and son's hands and sent them on to a Skeletal Specialist who was able to diagnose the condition - until then my DH never knew what it was called.

Some of the google information you might come across will sound a little scary as there is often reference to other congenital deformities and conditions, but my children are unaffected by any of these. Short stature is one problem, but all those affected in my DH's family are all 6ft plus (for the men - his mother is of average height) and my children with the condition were all very long babies and are quite tall children now.

As far as I know there is no treatment for it - there is no surgery that can correct it. It is just something you have to live with and even though I know we all want our children to by physically perfect, it is really only a minor cosmetic issue kwim?

I hope your Doctors can give you some answers soon :hug: