text: The mother of a baby born with deformed hands and feet in China is pleading for her husband to come home – four months after he told her he was going out to earn money for the girl's surgery. Worried Jiang Min says she has now run out of cash and can’t even afford food, let alone medical treatment, for baby Mengyu and their older daughter. She told People’s Daily Online: ‘Doctors said it’s best for Mengyu to have her operation between the age of four to six months. ‘But she is now six-and-a-half months and we simply do not have the money for her to have the operation - and her hands have started to fester.’ Desperate plight: Jiang Min. pictured with her daughter Mengyu, hasn't seen her husband for months . The family's plight has attracted the attention of local media in Binzhou City, who have cruelly compared Mengyu's webbed hands and feet to ‘pigs’ trotters’. Her father, who has not been named, left the family home in Lao Jun Tang Village in Shandong Province at the start of the year - telling them he was heading to Binzhou City to find work. He has not been heard from since. Little Mengyu's hands are severely deformed and doctors have recommended corrective surgery . Her feet are webbed, and local reporters have cruelly dubbed the deformed extremities as 'trotters' His wife phoned a restaurant where he previously worked but was told he had left his job a while ago. She says she can’t understand why her husband has disappeared, as they had been happily married for more than a decade. The couple's oldest daughter is aged ten. A local charity has offered to pay for Mengyu's basic medical care after hearing about her from local news sources - and she is being tended to at a hospital near her home. In need of surgery: Baby Mengyu is receiving basic medical treatment that is being paid for by a charity . Doing her best: Mum Jiang Min looks after Mengyu at home but is struggling to pay for even food . Distraught: Jiang Min breaks down while telling Chinese reporters about her dire situation. She says she can't understand why she hasn't heard from her husband - pictured with her on their wedding day a decade ago . Jiang said Mengyu's father took her to a local hospital soon after she was born but its doctors told him they did not have the facilities to help. They advised him to take Mengyu to the larger Wei Fang Mou Hospital. Her parents phoned specialists there, who said Mengyu would require surgery. Her father left home shortly afterwards and the family are now in poverty. ‘Even buying milk powder is a problem for us,’ said Jiang. ‘We are so poor that my oldest daughter asked me for 5 yuan (50p) to buy books for her class the other day and I couldn't even afford that.’ She said she continued to hope that her husband would return home.
target: Infant's extremities have been called 'pigs' trotters' by local reporters .
  Her dad vowed to find work in Binzhou City to pay for surgery for the girl .
  But  he hasn't been seen since he left  home four months ago .
  His family are deep in poverty and can't afford even basic medical care .