Have you ever wondered...

Avatar for cl_shywon
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-20-2003
Have you ever wondered...
16
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 11:22am

Where does your belly button lead to?


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 12:00pm

Nope, I haven't but am now wondering what you are on and can I please have some of that? :)))))))))))))))))) LOL.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-21-2005
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 12:17pm
No, I've never wondered that...but of course, all I can think of since the question has been asked is that it really doesn't lead anywhere because it used to be where the umbilical cord was.
Avatar for cfk_3
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-1999
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 1:22pm
Do other mammals have belly buttons? Such as apes or gorillas and if they do, who cuts the cord? Does the daddy ape gnaw it in half? Don't laugh, I just realized that my dog doesn't have one. How do they get nourishment inside the mother's womb? Maybe I didn't pay enough attention in science class ; ) Okay, I'm off to encyclopedia britannica ...
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2005
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 1:35pm

My dog has a belly button. And typically, the mom does chew it off, eat it, or bury it. And then naturally, like a babies, it falls off.


Look harder. I'm sure your dog has a belly button too.


All mammals should have a belly button. It just may not look like ours. :)

Avatar for cfk_3
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-1999
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 1:35pm

For those (few) of you who were curious, yes, all mammals have belly buttons although in most animals, it fades before adulthood. Sometimes it's visible as a tiny scar beneath the fur just under the ribcage.

I googled belly button and found an interesting array of results. Including, several links dedicated soley to belly button lint.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/lint/results.htm

--Yes, I have too much time on my hands.

Avatar for cfk_3
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-1999
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 1:39pm
Thanks!
Avatar for cl_shywon
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-20-2003
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 2:21pm

I found it on that link!


Your abdominal wall is made up of various layers, including skin, muscle and fat. They are all fused together at your belly button. You have subcutaneous (literally, "under the skin") fat that plumps up the skin all over your body. But the fat cannot lift the skin at the belly button, because the skin at that location is fused to your abdominal wall. That's why the belly button is concave. The umbilical cord is made up of four different structures : there are two arteries (taking waste to the placenta), one vein (supplying oxygenated blood and food), the allantois (which degenerates and turns nto the bladder) and the vitello-intestinal duct (which turns into the gut).


So basically, it goes nowhere.

Avatar for cl_shywon
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-20-2003
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 2:32pm

It's called a snow day, and if it ever starts snowing here, I might get to have another one tomorrow.

Avatar for cfk_3
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-1999
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 2:35pm
It's another warm day today but I hear that the winter weather is heading our way.
Avatar for cl_shywon
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-20-2003
Thu, 11-30-2006 - 2:36pm

No blood vessles and nerves, but I did learn that parts of the umbilical cord turn into other parts of your body.


The umbilical cord forms in the foetus's second month of life. It contains four main structures, all running through the belly button. They are the pair of umbilical arteries, the single umbilical vein, the allantois, and the vitello-intestinal duct.


Early on, most of the allantois disappears. Inside the baby's body it turns into the bladder.


The vitello-intestinal duct is a structure that ultimately turns into the gut. By the time the growing embryo is just six weeks old, the vitello-intestinal duct has disappeared from the umbilical cord - 98% of the time.


After the baby is delivered, the four structures of the umbilical cord shrink and close up entirely. They turn into internal tendons or cords.


The two obliterated umbilical arteries run downwards to become the lateral umbilical ligaments, which join with the arteries supplying the bladder.


The obliterated umbilical vein becomes the ligamentum teres, which runs upwards and attaches the liver to the belly button. The obliterated allantois is now a cord that runs down to the tip of the bladder.


Once you've been an air-breathing baby for a while, there should be no connection between your gut and your belly button. But the vitello-intestinal duct can occasionally remain open along its whole length, or just part of its length, up until birth. Very rarely, it remains open past the birth and into adult life.


So some people do have a belly button that leads somewhere!

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