Humans with Webbed Toes

[shorty_37]

One of the moms of a friend of my son has three webbed toes on each foot. I noticed this a long time ago, and thought it looked pretty strange and wondered how common it was.

Now I have come across a friend of my other son who has his 2 second toes webbed together (same on both feet)

From these 2 cases, the same toes are webbed on both feet. Is it more common for the same toes to be affected on each foot? Would it be less common for it to only appear on one foot?

How likely is it for you to be born with webbed feet if one of your parents have them?

When I look at them, I can't imagine not being able to wiggle my toes. I have read however it doesn't impair walking, running or other activities.

Do you know anybody with webbed feet?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

One of the moms of a friend of my son has three webbed toes on each foot. I noticed this a long time ago, and thought it looked pretty strange and wondered how common it was.

Now I have come across a friend of my other son who has his 2 second toes webbed together (same on both feet)

From these 2 cases, the same toes are webbed on both feet. Is it more common for the same toes to be affected on each foot? Would it be less common for it to only appear on one foot?

How likely is it for you to be born with webbed feet if one of your parents have them?

When I look at them, I can't imagine not being able to wiggle my toes. I have read however it doesn't impair walking, running or other activities.

Do you know anybody with webbed feet?

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M*W: Hi, Shorty. I hope no one gets suspicious or paranoid that I am replying to your thread. I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I have done some reading in infant and children's genetic defects. There is some indication that there is a high incidence of webbed footed children in Alabama. Don't know why exactly. In Tennessee there seems to be a preponderous of cranio-facial deformities. So much so, that they developed a research center for this particular defect.

When I was about 9 or 10, we went to Tennessee to visit some great aunt on my mother's side. The first thing I noticed as we got out of the car was a little boy of about 2 years old who had a cranio-facial deformity. I didn't know about this, of course, at that age, but I never forgot it. I think he may have also been retarded, but I don't remember that far back in the Dark Ages. I think the most interesting thing about specific deformities is the demography of the findings.

I wouldn't be too concerned with two second toe webbing. If you ignore the big toe and look at the remaining four (five or six, whatever), you'll see that they aren't really webbed, it's just that the big toe has a longer separation for the foot than do the remaining toes. If that's not the case, then I have two second webbed toes. Look at this on the bright side of this problem. People with webbed toes are better swimmers.

You can find more information on this on a website called National Organization of Rare Diseases (NORD). I prefer to look up these kinds of syndromes on PubMed and MedLine, where you can access the medical literature for every imaginable disorder.