New Mom Discovers Baby Son Was Born With Beautiful Rare ‘Heart-Shaped’ Thumb

A new mom in Ohio gave doctors an unexpected surprise after giving birth to a healthy baby boy with a beautiful heart-shaped thumb.

Sarah Wilson told Newsweek her doctors said they “haven’t seen a case like this in their careers” before. Wilson’s son was born via C-section at 36 weeks and six days. It was while doctors were checking him over just afterward that they noticed he had “two fingernails on his right thumb.”

That, in itself, was not a massive shock. Polydactyly, the clinical term for when a baby is born with one or more extra fingers, is relatively common.

According to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Genetics, research suggests polydactyly occurs in an average of 1.6 to 10.7 of every 1,000 births and is twice as likely to occur in males as it is in females. It’s also thought to run in families.

That’s where Wilson’s situation deviates slightly from the norm. “The doctor asked if it ran in the family and it did not, which is a pretty rare occurrence,” she said.

Perhaps the most significant difference, however, is in the shape of the thumb itself, with the Polydactyly giving the digit a beautiful heart shape.

“The doctors there told us they never have seen extra appendages in that arrangement,” Wilson said. “Usually it was something they could tie off and it dies off like the umbilical cord, but they told us there was nothing they could do at the hospital and would require follow-ups with specialists.”

Wilson said they have been booked for an appointment at their local children’s hospital where doctors will try to get a better understanding of how the bones in the thumb are connected. “I was told by another pediatrician that they are very interested in seeing the X-rays since they rarely ever see this variation of polydactyly,” she said.

In the meantime, Wilson took to Reddit, posting under the handle SarahFoxy11 to share a picture of her son’s heart-shaped thumb. At the time of writing the image has been upvoted over 27,000 times. “It was something that was a complete surprise to us and I never would have imagined this would have happened when I was pregnant with him,” Wilson said.

She said that no decision has been made about whether any intervention is required on the thumb. “We’re going to discuss this with his doctors,” she said. “Right now he’s able to use his hand like everyone else. We will weigh the pros and cons about surgery when he’s young. He’s less than a week old at this point and he has so much growing to do.”

For now, they are happy to wait and see how he adapts to it. “If my husband and I see that his thumb is negatively impacting his life, we will highly consider surgery,” Wilson said. “There is also the concern of kids his age potentially making fun of him when he gets older, and I hate seeing that for my kids. I just hope he embraces his difference because he is such a beautiful child and we love him so much.”