So we all know how a bellybuttons outer end looks like, because we can just look at it. But what about the inner end? Whats on the inside of the bellybutton? Is it still conected to anything? Is it a tube that just ends?
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During pregnancy, the umbilical cord contains four structures, the umbilical vein, two umbilical arteries, and the allantois. Once they penetrate the abdominal wall of the fetus, they travel in different directions. The umbilical vein goes to the liver, the arteries to either side in the pelvis, and the allantois in the midline toward the bladder. They become smaller and smaller once they are no longer needed, but little remnants do exist even in adults. They are called the round ligament of the liver, the medial umbilical ligaments, and the urachus. They don’t really do anything.
Fun fact: I have a friend who really likes body sculpting plastic surgery. She had lipo several times and eventually got botched. Her last surgery was done to “move her bellybutton back to the middle” since it had slowly been pulled to one side. She doesn’t do lipo anymore.
Edit: Another fun story. Several of my internal organs and my belly button “stalk” (yes, that’s what it’s called) were invaded by my endometriosis. It finally got so bad around the belly button that I would bleed out around my navel under the skin. Just pooling blood and tissue that spread from inside my belly button out around it on my tummy. Looked like a creeping bruise, but would eventually reabsorb. The doctor loved that I took a photo of it, as he’d never seen that in real life or in one of his own patients.
When I was a kid there was some guy at my church that didn’t have a belly button and he’d around lifting his shirt to prove it lol.
Oh! I have a related anecdote! Starting in my late teens or so, my belly button was perpetually angry and would smell weird and occasionally weep reddish brown nasties. No matter how often and carefully I cleaned it, that would come and go.
A few years ago I finally got sick of it and decided to investigate. I saw my PCP, a dermatologist, two infectious disease specialists, and finally a general surgeon. I got X-rays, a CT scan, and an MRI.
The surgeon finally figured out that my belly button was SUPER deep, like almost all the way to the muscle-deep, and there was an infection at its depth. Every time it started to heal, normal movement would reinfect that skin, hence the off-and-on yuck. So he sliced open my belly button from underneath, cut out all the infected tissue, and closed it up, along with an unknown hernia. My new “belly button” is only like half an inch deep. No more smells!
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