Want to see my placenta?

[slingmama4]

or am I the only weirdo who thinks stuff like this is interesting? I took lots of pics of my placenta and thought I'd share in case anyone was curious or hadn't ever seen what a placenta looks like.

WARNING: It is a placenta, so there is blood in the pics.

Placenta was 10" in diameter
Umbilical cord was 25" long

Here is the amniotic sac wear baby grew for the last 10 months (lol). However, its inside out. This is the actual maternal side (attached to me) I couldn't pull the sack back to the other side without tearing it, so ... make since?
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w...Birth20032.jpg

http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w...Birth20031.jpg

http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w...Birth20033.jpg

Silvery side of placenta and umbilical cord.- baby side. This is the side that the sack should have been on.
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w...Birth20034.jpg

http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w...Birth20036.jpg

Anyone know why his umbilical cord had this? Is it a knot on the inside?
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w...Birth20038.jpg

http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w...Birth20037.jpg

Now to make my placenta prints!!!

[babykaoss]

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing!

I'll be curious to hear if anyone knows about the cord/knot mystery, I have no idea.

[fwlady]

I don't have any idea either about the knot looking thing. I wouldn't want to do it, but you could take a peek to see. They look like blood clots to me, and I would have to say with my little experience with placentas, I couldn't BARE to see the one at my perfect UC, made me ill, but the last birth, the cord was more cord looking than yours, and the first UC, I didn't see the cord look like that. So, I would have to say that these are VERY interesting pics. I almost thought I couldn't look, but you intrigued me about the "knot" thing. LOL Curiousity kills the cat, right? LOL

Hope a pro chimes in that have seen many more cords. Kymberli

[DocsNemesis]

I dont know either! I agree, it kind of looks like a knot inside the outer membrane. Or maybe its a couple big clots? I dont really know. So odd!

[djinneyah]

my guess would be clots (disclaimer: sooooo not an expert). it looks like about 3 large blood clots that settled in that particular spot and distended the cord. did you happen to notice right away that the cord looked like that, or not until later after the blood had had time to clot and settle?

if it were me, i would definitely be taking a knife to it to dissect and look, for curiosity's sake. very interesting!!

[~ Wonderful Life ~]

That is awesome!!

[Earth Momma]

WOW - thank you, those are amazing, and I would have never thought to take pics!

[Serenyd]

Cool pics. Knot kind of looks like it has a hematoma (collection of blood), maybe the cord was injured at some point? Let us know if you find out. Mysterious!

[Sijae]

It just looks like a larger clump of blood clots to me. You can see smaller ones farther down the cord and it seems that more blood settled in that spot. Some cords have more blood pockets than others. You could just cut it open and see :-)

[reducereuserecycle]

awesome!!!!

i can't believe how cords vary....dd's cord was like 12 inches long....it was very short...never found out why but it was also much thinner than most cords...almost as thin as a pencil.

those knots are interesting too.

thanks for sharing

[lia_joy]

so cool!
I wanted to take tons of pics this last time, but I got distracted baby snuggling and forgot

[Kidzaplenty]

I am weird, but I love seeing pics like those. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, and I would be disecting it too!

[Thankful'n'Blessed]

SO cool!!! Thanks for the show and tell!

[yalad]

It appears to me that this is what is called a "false knot" meaning a pseudoknot. It is not a true know, but an exaggerated loop of one of the umbilical arteries becasue it is longer than the vein. It is pretty common and usually there is no sequel to this cord anomaly. Good pictures!! BTW.
yalad

[zonapellucida]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

I am weird, but I love seeing pics like those. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, and I would be disecting it too!

me too after I made my prints... I have one I need to thaw very soon to "get it out of the way" and make room in the freexer for the next one.

(We did this as a homeschool project.)

[Juvysen]

Very cool!

I took pictures of mine, too! Wanna see and compare?

[slingmama4]

Originally Posted by yalad

It appears to me that this is what is called a "false knot" meaning a pseudoknot. It is not a true know, but an exaggerated loop of one of the umbilical arteries becasue it is longer than the vein. It is pretty common and usually there is no sequel to this cord anomaly. Good pictures!! BTW.
yalad

:This is what I was thinking. They look like loops inside the cord where the arteries where a bit too long.

I plan to do my placenta prints and then disect the cord to see exactly what it looks like inside. I will update with pics of the dissection if anyone's curious.

The cord came out like that. They didn't occur due to clotting of the blood after his birth. The half of the cord that is closest to baby looked like a very "traditional" cord, but the other half going towards the placenta had a lot of these loops (this was the largest) and it was skinner than the other half. Obviously, regardless of what it looked like the cord did it's job because I have a healthy 10lb 5oz baby that it fed and grew. Not worried, just think it's interesting.

[slingmama4]

Originally Posted by Juvysen

Very cool!

I took pictures of mine, too! Wanna see and compare?

yeah!! Post pics!!

[Juvysen]

I think there's only the one... it was a couple years ago.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...r-placenta.jpg

[Coconut Chronicles]

Fascinating!