How many times do I have to operate on a two-year-old, four-month-old baby who has a combined merged finger on his right mirror-image hand?

Many children aged two or three are afraid of doctors and cry when they see a white coat, but recently, a two-year-old and four-month-old child was not afraid and was very well behaved. In addition to the fact that she was not afraid of the doctor, the child’s hand problem was not very common. Her right hand was a rare mirror image hand deformity, and she also had a combination of syndactyly and flexion contracture. The parents responded that the child’s right hand could grasp, but not well. For this child, we first want the right hand to have a relatively normal anatomy, because if the anatomy is not normal, then it is difficult to require function. So we have to remove the extra fingers and do thumbing to give the child a thumb out and the flexion contracture has to be addressed. How many surgeries do you have to do in a case like this? Usually, if all the phase I surgeries can be done well, we try to do them all at once so that the child can also suffer less. If the pair of palms is still poor after the phase I surgery, then we have to do phase II. When it comes to solving the contracture problem, parents worry that the contracture will be worse after the surgery because of the scar. In fact, the parents’ concern is not unreasonable, because it is possible and we cannot completely exclude this aspect. However, we will do everything we can during the surgery, one is to release all the contractures, and the other is to try not to implant the skin, using the no-implant technique. This way, the scars will be relatively small and the chance of contracture will be reduced. Parents say that if they talk to their children at home, they will move their right hand, but if they don’t, they won’t move it very well. In fact, this is not the child’s fault, because the child’s right hand has more problems and it is really inconvenient to use it, so it is normal that he or she does not want to move. If the problem is not solved by early surgery, the child’s right hand will always be immobile, and the stimulation will be relatively small, and the gap with the left hand will become bigger and bigger, so it is necessary to operate as early as possible.