wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (09/13/85)
OK, here's a weird question: Why are navels different from any other scar? If you have surgery or an accident that cuts your flesh, you (hopefully) eventually heal, and what you have is scar tissue. Yet the navel, the remains of the cutting of the umbilical cord, is not just a simple scar on your abdomen, but seemingly a complicated structure, more sensitive than the surrounding skin. Why is that? What is inside behind the navel? (A lot of large blood vessels ending abruptly? Or do the blood paths that existed to feed the placenta wither away and vanish after birth?) Will Martin UUCP/USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
dawn@prism.UUCP (09/17/85)
The doctor cuts the unbilical cord, and ties it into a knot
and tucks it in -- this causes the interesting convolutions
to form. Depending on the doctor's tying technique, you get
an in-y or an out-y. :-)
Bill Cosby used to have a routine about navals -- he said not
to play with it, because if you untie it you'll let all the
air out and fly around the room like an escaping balloon!
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------johansen@agrigene.UUCP (09/23/85)
> > > The doctor cuts the unbilical cord, and ties it into a knot > and tucks it in -- this causes the interesting convolutions > to form. Depending on the doctor's tying technique, you get > an in-y or an out-y. :-) > > Bill Cosby used to have a routine about navals -- he said not > to play with it, because if you untie it you'll let all the > air out and fly around the room like an escaping balloon! > *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** I always believed that the umbilical cord was tied giving the shape. In fact this is not true. As any parent knows, after cutting the cord, a stump is left. Modern medicine uses a plastic clamp to seal the end (no knots). In fact, the clamp is applied before the cutting of the cord. In any case, the stump falls off by itself in a few weeks leaving a navel. Maybe a medical person can explain why some are in-y and others are out-y.
koch@tallis.DEC (Kevin Koch LTN1-2/B17 DTN229-6274) (09/23/85)
I had the same curiosity and did some research, mostly in various
sections of Gray's anatomy. Here, through the filter of an imperfect
memory over several years, is what I found:
The umbilical blood vessels are clamped within a few minutes of
birth by some muscles somewhere. They atrophy over a period of <???>.
To open up a new can of worms, that it takes a few minutes for the
circulation to be rerouted to the lungs has implications for when in
the birth process the umbilical cord should be cut.
The bladder tapers to a point and is connected by some fibrous
tissue to the navel. There are some interesting nervous connections,
too. If you pull on your navel very hard, or dig your fingernails
into it, you may observe some tingling sensations in your genital
area.
Kevin Koch (Koch is it!)
... decwrl!dec-tallis!koch // koch%tallis.dec@decwrl.ARPAcarl@aoa.UUCP (Carl Witthoft) (09/30/85)
I had an "outy" when I was a kid, then I gained weight
and now have an "inny". (:==>, in case you wondered)
Darwin's Dad (Carl Witthoft)
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