Polydactyly surgery is not just the removal of extra fingers. Dr. Yousheng Fang points out that many parents of children with polydactyly think that polydactyly surgery is just the removal of the extra finger, which is wrong. In fact, there are structural abnormalities inside the finger that we cannot see, including abnormal growth of bones, joints, tendons and other tissues. If the surgery is simply to remove the extra finger, not only will it be very unsightly in appearance, but the finger will also function poorly and may even need to be repaired with another surgery. This secondary repair surgery is not only more difficult, but also has poor surgical results. For soft tissue polydactyly, where there are no bones, tendons or other tissues in the polydactyly, the excess can be removed at any time, even when the baby is just born. For simple polydactyly, that is, polydactyly with bones, tendons, and other tissues, the previous concept was to wait until the child was 2 or 3 years old, or even until school age. However, with the improvement of surgical techniques as well as anesthesia techniques, nowadays the choice is generally to start the surgery after the baby is half a year old. The reason for choosing this time is based on the following two points: 1. It is best to perform the surgery after the baby has built up its own resistance, and after six months of separation from the mother, the baby can have its own resistance; 2. When the baby is just born, many tissues and structures are not well developed, such as the carpal bones have not yet grown. If you choose to do the operation of multiple finger removal at this time, it is easy to injure some hand tissue structures, and you will not even notice that these tissue structures are removed during the operation. Therefore, the results of surgery at this time are often poor. It is worth noting that it is best not to wait until after the baby is 2 years old to do the surgery for polydactyly. After the age of 2, the baby’s psychological development is gradually developing, and he or she will have some sense of his or her own abnormality and will develop negative emotions such as low self-esteem. The negative emotions such as low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence in childhood may plant a shadow in his heart, which will have a certain impact on the baby’s future life and work. How to fix the finger after surgery to remove polydactyly? Polydactyly is not only an extra finger, but also an abnormal growth of the tissue structure, so it can be said that polydactyly is usually accompanied by deformity. Not necessarily. If the surgery does not touch the bone, only the removal of soft tissue or tendons, basically do not need to be fixed, just wrap the wound with a bandage, keep the wound clean and dry. However, if the baby has been osteotomized and the joint repaired, it is necessary to insert a “Kristen pin”, a common orthopedic internal fixation material, into the joint of the affected finger after the orthopedic surgery to keep the finger in a normal position and avoid the reappearance of the bending deformity of the finger after the surgery. Of course, the Kristen pin does not remain in the body, but is removed 3-4 weeks after surgery, and the pain caused when it is removed is similar to the removal of stitches. In addition to the internal fixation with a Kirschner pin, external fixation with a cast is required after surgery, especially if the ligament or tendon is repaired. This is because the baby may cry a lot and cause the repaired joint or tendon to rupture (in children, it takes at least 3 weeks for the repaired joint or tendon to heal). A cast will keep the baby’s hand from moving around to avoid injury to the affected area. After the fixation by kyphoplasty many parents of children feel that their baby’s finger is straightened and think that the kyphoplasty is very useful, but Dr. Yousheng Fang tells us that this is only an appearance. This is because if the joint is not actually repaired during the surgery, but only temporarily the Kirschner’s pin is inserted into the joint, although it can also straighten the finger, the bending deformity of the finger will still exist after the Kirschner’s pin is removed. In addition, it is worth noting that the correct use of the Kratom needle has no adverse effects on the baby. Some parents of children reported that the baby’s nails appeared bruised after surgical correction. For this phenomenon, Dr. Fang Yousheng believes that experienced doctors will rarely put the Kratom needle into the nail because it will damage the nail bed and lead to nail deformation in the future. If the nail bruising is caused by bleeding during the surgery, it will have no effect on the baby and can be eliminated on its own as long as the nail bed is not injured. What are the results of polydactyly surgery? Will my baby’s fingers (toes) look and function like normal people after surgery? Will there be a significant difference in size? This is the main concern of the parents of the children. In this regard, Prof. Fang Yousheng explained that the appearance of the fingers will be significantly improved after surgery for polydactyly, and the functions such as writing will not be affected in general, but it will be difficult to recover completely to the same level as ordinary people after surgery. The affected finger is often smaller than the normal finger because of the influence of the extra finger, but after the surgery to remove the extra finger, the affected finger will “chase the growth”, faster than the other four normal fingers, this growth will make the difference in thumb size reduced, and the appearance will be improved. During the follow-up, many parents reported that their baby’s hand looked much more beautiful after the removal of the extra finger, which is also the reason.