TIL that the belly button/naval is a 'scar'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navel

I guess it makes sense, but I've never thought of it like that before.

203 points · 53 comments · view on lemmy.world

53 Comments

FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 84d (28 replies)

A show i watched as a kid was a Dr Who Spinoff called The Sarah Jane Adventures and a main character is a faux-human created by aliens in a lab, who therefore has no belly button. I've always thought that was really interesting and that it's unfair we can't have smooth, holeless abdomens too.

adarza@lemmy.ca · 31 pts · 84d (3 replies)
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 84d (1 reply)

Ah, commonn sci fi trope i see. Also funny thst the wikipedia article there makes it sound like having no belly button would be as big a concern as amnesia itself

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 84d

usually indicate they are clones.

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 84d

Moebius' the Incal has it too, clones of John Difool detects him as the "cloning father" because he has a belly button.

Murse@slrpnk.net · 27 pts · 84d (4 replies)

unfair we can’t have smooth, holeless abdomens too.

Gonna throw this upfront: Don't image search this unless you're prepared to see some seriously mutilated babies on the brink of, or in some cases shortly after their death. This is close to the top of the worst NSFL shit on the internet.

Anyway, gastroschesis. Birth defect in which the intestines are outside of the body at birth. The fix is to basically cut a new hole and shove them back in, with the resulting wound being kinda at the doctor's / parent's discretion: they can immitate a natural belly button, or just say fuck it and give it a clean closure line, the resulting scar from which can heal with virtually no visible scar tissue. I think it's more common for there to be -some- disfigurement from the scarring, but babies have fucking super powers when it comes to healing, and a wound that would give you or me a ropy, nasty scar, would look like a little scratch on them.

So, not quite smooth/holeless in the way you're probably thinking, but potentially not far off from it - all you need to do is be born with a condition that's likely to kill you!

lb_o@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 84d (1 reply)

On the bright side - 95% survival rate.

Thanks for sharing, was a strange read, but made me fear less essentially.

Murse@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 84d

95% survival rate

Oh, I had no idea it was that high! I had ~50% on my brain. That's pretty incredible looking at some of these - crazy portions of their abdominal contents are just hanging out.

FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 84d

Thank you for the nsfl warning, I will NOT be googling that. Interesting to read though.

shoe@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 84d

My niece had this! Her parents elected to leave her without a belly button and, yep, no visible scar tissue :). Pretty incredible, given how dire things looked when she was born.

lugal@sopuli.xyz · 18 pts · 84d (4 replies)

There is a religious debate in the Talmud if Adam had a belly button

SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 9 pts · 84d (2 replies)

If Adam had one and he was made in the image of god, would that mean that god had one as well? And that god therefore had a mother?

lugal@sopuli.xyz · 10 pts · 84d (1 reply)

Exactly these kinds of questions

SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 4 pts · 84d

If we could combine that with drinking wine or beer and playing cards, I'd be interested. Oh, and of course, don't take it seriously because that would kill all the fun.

FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 84d

I imagine that, if he hasn't (because shaped from clay or whatever) then it implies that the presence of a belly button in every other human is a "flaw," which is in-line with the idea of fallen creation.

That said, "made in God's image" does not mean resembling God. It means made as God's "imagers" - symbols of his power and keepers of his will. It's a concept inherent to every other early middle eastern religion; Idols of a deity, even as little statues, are exactly that. Yahweh didn't need statues because humans were his "statues".

A mistranslation, unfortunately.

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 13 pts · 84d (3 replies)

eh, if aliens ever produce lab-grown humans, i think there's a 99.9% chance they'll have belly buttons too, guessing that they're growing them in artificial wombs where the baby makes an umbilical cord.

i mean why would you do it any other way? maybe an infusion directly into the arm or sth ...

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 84d (2 replies)

right? the umbilical system is frankly so useful and well designed that it's one of the few things you can't use as evidence against god creating us. It actually looks like some thought was put into the design.

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 84d (1 reply)

lots and lots of biological systems are very well made

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 83d

Sure, like the left recurrent laryngeal nerve that goes from the brain, down the neck and loops around the aorta, then goes back up again!

wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 84d

smooth, holeless

I'm a barbie girl, in a barbie world...

Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 4 pts · 84d (5 replies)

smooth, holeless

...undecorated

FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 84d

Oh, okay yeah. Not holeless. Please not a holeless abdomen 😭

lugal@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 84d (3 replies)

So you're saying your scars decorate you?

Chais@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 84d
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 3 pts · 84d (1 reply)

So you're saying

I do not need to correct everyone who tries to misunderstand me. Keep your wrinkled opinion if it makes you happy.

lugal@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 84d

I didn't mean to insult you or anything but just make a joke

toynbee@piefed.social · 4 pts · 84d

Apparently, when plastic surgeons do tummy tucks, they sometimes have to "drill" out a new navel.

quick_snail@feddit.nl · 2 pts · 84d

Seems like a reasonable place to attach the electrodes tho

some_random_nick@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 84d

The anime's Dr. Slump main character, who is a robot girl, has the same issue. I think it was brought up just in one episode and the Dr. fixed it afterwads.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 28 pts · 84d (1 reply)

people who had the rare appendicial cancer, have to get thier bellybutton(among other organs) removed, because the "cancer jelly spreads all inside the abdomen whent he cysts burst. audrey hepburn had this disease.

Spacehooks@reddthat.com · 11 pts · 84d

Do they like have a smooth belly like clones in space: above and beyond?

BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 84d (7 replies)

For a long time I believed that my belly button grew hair. As my belly button had a little tuft since puberty. I mean there were new hairs then, so I just didn't consider it.

One day the conversation (exposed navels were in vogue at the time) turns to this little tidbit.

Well, you can imagine me putting two and two together and eventually tugging a little plug of dead skin and belly button lint wrapped around a few dozen hairs.

I wish it hadn't been before smart phones. It was one of those things that's so gross you hang onto it for a day or two out of some primordial reverence.

Also, does anyone else's navel serve as a nausea button? I've had several partners try to play with it and it's not enjoyable at all.

colourlessidea@sopuli.xyz · 16 pts · 84d (2 replies)

+1 to nausea button! Anyone know why that is?

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 84d

my guess is because it's a vulnerable area (lots of soft tissue directly behind it) and so it makes sense that your body says "ugh, no" when something touches it.

Uranhjort@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 84d

Well for one thing your guts are like right there behind it, they don't much like being poked.

johnyreeferseed@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 84d (1 reply)

If my wife sticks her finger in my belly button it makes my butthole tickle. I don't enjoy it but I can see how others would lol.

diabetic_porcupine@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 84d

It’s not the tickle it’s the stretch

macaw_dean_settle@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 83d (1 reply)

How do you not clean your belly button when showering?

BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 81d

It makes me nauseous lol

Quilotoa@lemmy.ca · 20 pts · 84d (5 replies)

And unique to each individual. Perhaps we can use it as a security identifier along with fingerprints.

IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 84d (4 replies)

bellybutton ID to replace faceid, soon all business wear will have exposed belly button.

That's normal office attire

bhamlin@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 84d

We can call it NavelGazr

Skyrmir@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 84d (1 reply)

Nay they'd be covered with a flap, can't have people taking pictures to fool security with, but you need to easily expose it for check points.

IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 84d

Fine, people can wear belly button stickers, like nipple covers

deathmetaldawgy@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 84d

I’m def cool with this, except I work in a kitchen so I’d end up scarring my pretty little tummy. Also it may be pretty but nobody wants to see my happy trail with carbonara and Alfredo all over it. Maybe some of y'all do, I guess. idk.

West_of_West@piefed.social · 14 pts · 84d (1 reply)

So if I get scurvy...

Spacehooks@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 84d

Oh man thats a thought. Reminds me of claymore. The hunters have never healing scar on their bellies that never heals after they get turned into living weapons.

HeHoXa@lemmy.zip · 14 pts · 84d

It is a lint factory.

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · -11 pts · 84d (4 replies)

I'm pretty sure that we cut the umbilical cord too short after a baby is leaving the mother's womb.

The umbilical cord's remnants kinda wraps inward into the body, and if it's cut short, it makes a hole later. Leaving it a bit longer would mean that it stays rather flat or sth.

also cats apparently chew on their children's umbilical cord after birth to sever them. which i think if pretty cool. so archaic.

velma@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 84d (1 reply)

They don’t cut them too short. The rest of the umbilical cord, the stump part, naturally falls off of a newborn after some time. Bellybutton is a naturally formed type of scar.

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 84d

we also have cartilege inside us where blood vessels previously had bypasses, as blood kinda flows in reverse when the umbilical system is active.

It's kind of insane, infants switch their whole circulatory system around at birth. Looking at it you'd think it's a horribly fragile system but clearly it's extremely reliable!

sunnie@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 84d

We opted for natural childbirth and my husband chewed through the umbilical cord to sever it.

amniote@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 84d

Should be spelled umbellycal cord ! :)