What the Navel Remembers: teacher key

Belly Buttons, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. The belly button is the surviving mark of a lifeline that fed, cleaned and breathed for a baby. Trace how the cord is built, how the body retires it and what is still unknown.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What does Wharton's jelly protect the cord's vessels from?
   • Infection
   • Being squeezed, twisted or bent (answer)
   • Waste
2. What did doctors change about cord timing after the 1960s?
   • They began clamping and cutting almost right away (answer)
   • They always waited five minutes
   • They stopped cutting the cord
3. What is said about why doctors began cutting the cord almost right away?
   • It was a law
   • The reasons are unclear, and the quick cut's value was never shown (answer)
   • It was proven to protect babies
4. Why do hospitals that wait to clamp watch for jaundice?
   • The cord causes it directly
   • Waiting may slightly raise its chance (answer)
   • It signals an infection of the stump
5. What does the word umbilicus mean here?
   • The placenta
   • The bag around the baby
   • The navel (answer)

Words

• umbilicus: the navel
• ligamentum: tough string
• granuloma: extra scar lump
• monotremes: egg-laying mammals
• cicatrix: dense scar