150 members of a Panipat family have extra fingers, toes; doctors say Polydactyly condition runs down generations

Children born in this family have one or more extra fingers or toes. Even when daughters get married and give birth, the child is born with this finger abnormality.

Panipat: In a rare case that has come to light, 150 members of a family in Haryana's Panipat district have six or more fingers or toes. Children born in this family have an extra toe or finger and daughters married to other families also have children with similar finger abnormality.

Johnny, a member of the family from Babarpur village of Panipat, said that his father was born with an extra finger and had got his sixth finger amputated. But, when Jonny was born he had six fingers and six toes. When he got married, his elder son too was also born with six toes, Johnny said adding that there are about 150 members in his family who have extra fingers and toes.

According to Johnny, the extra finger does not pose any problem but he he faces difficulty in wearing slippers and shoes. Half of his family lives in Babarpur Mandi and the other lives in Nohra village adjacent to Panipat.

Physician, Dr Jai Shree said the family has Polydactyly, a condition in which a baby is born with one or more extra fingers or toes. The extra fingers and toes are usually very small and abnormally developed. This is an inherited condition that often runs in families. The condition is caused by a dominant allele of a gene that keeps getting transferred among the members from one generation to the next, Dr Shree said.

"Mostly, this condition is passed on to the elder children but others too may have it. Although the extra fingers do not cause any harm, they can create obstacles," he said.

Dr Shree further said that if the father has six fingers then there are more chances of the condition being transferred to the elder son. This genetic abnormality can be restricted by homeopathy treatment. Sometimes the condition disappears with only a single dose, he added.

In September, a baby girl was born in Kaman in Rajasthan with 14 fingers and 12 toes. Her family considered the newborn to be a Goddess.