How is it that egg born animals do not have to breathe until they hatch from the egg?
In: Biology
A similar question could be asked of liveborn creatures, like mammals. Why is it a fetus can survive for months without breathing, then all of a sudden must breathe after birth.
Whether you’re egg-born, or live-born the concept is that your pre-birth state puts you in an environment where everything you need both nutritionally and life-support-wise is provided by your environment.
Fetuses within their mothers receive nutrition and new oxygenated blood through the umbilical cord and surrounding placenta.
Fetuses within laid eggs receive nutrition and new oxygenated blood through, as others have already stated, the porous nature of the egg shell and an air pocket that is created when the warm insides of the egg shrink some after cooling, pulling a vacuum which draws air in through the micro-pores in the shell.
After birth, the fetuses’ behaviors must change to adapt to this new environment called “being a baby”, and breathe and eat and expel waste on their own.
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