It will amaze you at how much you likely don't know about your own belly button. Are you one of those people who believes that the reason you have an “innie” or “outie” has something to do with the way the obstetrician cut and tied off your umbilical cord when you were born? The persistence of the innie/outie myth is “Exhibit A” that shows most people don’t know anything about their belly button. So, here are some things that you may not have known, and it’s likely your life won’t change much after you do.
IT’S A JUNGLE IN THERE
According to scientists, belly buttons are home to a startling diversity of bacteria. Using RNA sequencing, researchers have identified 2,368 different species of bacteria living in the naval. For comparison, there are half as many species of birds or ants in North America. Although eight species of bacteria dominate the belly button, accounting for 45% of the total population, no single bacteria can be found in every person’s belly button.
YOUR BELLY BUTTON IS CONNECTED TO YOUR LIVER
What’s behind your belly button? You may have thought nothing, but just like the belly button is a leftover remnant of the external umbilical cord, there are also internal traces of the prenatal connection. The purpose of the umbilical cord is to provide nutrients and oxygen from the mother to the fetus, which it does through umbilical veins and arteries. Inside the growing fetus, those umbilical veins and arteries connect to the circulatory system, the liver and the bladder. When the baby is born and takes its first lungful of air, the umbilical cord is cut. Then, the internal sections of the umbilical veins and arteries dry up and harden into a type of ligament, but those ligaments are still attached to the inside of the belly button. One of the ligaments connects and bisects the liver. Another stretches down into the pelvis where portions of it may still function as part of the circulatory system near the bladder.
HAIRY BELLIES ARE LINT MAGNETS
Belly button lint, like earwax and toe jam, is one of the great unspoken mysteries of the human body. Research shows that moderately overweight older men with hairy tummies are the most likely to have belly button lint. The hair on the stomach traps bits of cotton fiber from clothing, and the movements of the shirt over the hairs funnels the fibers down with gravitational life force toward the black hole that is the navel. In fact, volunteers who shaved the hair around their belly buttons, noticed that around 40% of the lint trap disappeared.
SOME PEOPLE DON’T HAVE BELLY BUTTONS
All placental mammals have belly buttons. That includes cats and dogs and beluga whales, although it's often harder to see them on animals. Yet oddly enough, not all humans have belly buttons. Nobody is born without an umbilical cord, so all of us should have belly buttons, right? Some babies are born with issues like umbilical hernias or a more serious condition called gastroschisis, where a baby's intestines stick out from a weak point in the abdominal wall. Those conditions can easily be corrected surgically, but the resulting scar doesn't look much like a belly button.
BELLY BUTTONS ARE A SURGEON’S BEST FRIEND
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the belly button is the window to the gallbladder. In the field of minimally invasive surgery, more surgeons are performing major procedures without serious scarring by going through the belly button using laparoscopic surgery to make a small incision in the naval and insert a laparoscope — a telescope-like tool with a light on the end that enables doctors to see what’s going on side the gut.
LAST, BUT NOT LEAST……
Now that you know about your disgusting belly button, you’re likely wondering about the proper way to clean it. Physicians say to gently wipe your belly button with a cotton swab dipped in water, a saltwater solution, or hydrogen peroxide to clean it.
