Baby born with 12 fingers, 12 toes

NEW YORK: For the parents of a newborn boy here, it is a problem of plenty.

Jeshuah Fuller is just a normal baby, weighing about three kilograms, but has six fingers on each hand and six toes on both feet.

The rare condition of Jeshuah, born on Tuesday at Brooklyn Hospital Centre, is known as polydactyly or hexadactyly, and is usually genetic.

Jeshuah's father was born with a sixth finger on his left hand, the New York Daily News reported.

"I was like, wow, I gave him the finger," the 29-year-old dad, who asked to remain anonymous, told the paper.

While one in 2,000 babies is born with an extra finger or toe, it's much rarer to have extra digits on each appendage, said Dr Robert Marion, director of genetics at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore.

Among African-Americans, one in 200 is born with a sixth finger or toe, he said.

Jeshuah's mother, Quana Morris, said she knew her son would have extra fingers from an ultrasound image taken 19 weeks into her pregnancy.

"We were counting them on the sonogram," said Morris, 34, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

But when the nurses brought Jeshuah to her and told her about his feet, she was unsure as to what to expect.

While Jeshuah is healthy, he will have his extra fingers and toes surgically removed in mid-September, Morris said.