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  • The little scar in the middle of your abdomen marks the place where, for about nine glorious

  • months, all the nutrients you needed to grow and develop and survive flowed straight into

  • your bloodstream while you just floated around in a sac of amniotic fluid. But have you ever

  • wondered what was going on with your other bodily functions while you were in that enclosed

  • space? To put it a little more bluntly, did you, you know, pee and poop in there?

  • The answer to question #1 is yes, definitely: embryos start peeing after just two months

  • of development, around the time they first begin swallowing--and, therefore, drinking--amniotic

  • fluid.

  • This does essentially mean that fetuses spend seven months drinking their own pee, but that's

  • actually not as gross as it sounds. For one thing, urine--unlike feces--is sterile, so

  • it doesn't contain bacteria that could make the fetus sick. Also, the waste products we

  • normally get rid of by urinating, like excess nitrogen, are instead filtered from the fetus

  • and delivered, through the umbilical cord, back to the mother for disposal.

  • And what about the waste we normally get rid of by pooping? Well, mom takes care of that,

  • too - indirectly. She digests food before it gets to the baby, absorbing nutrients like

  • sugar and protein into her bloodstream and then passing those nutrients to her fetus

  • through the umbilical cord. So most of the potential poop products stay with the mother.

  • The fetus's digestive system isn't totally empty, though: some waste does go there and

  • get broken down by acidic bile in the small intestines, producing a slimy, sticky greenish

  • mass called meconium. But, unlike the large intestine of everyone outside a womb, a fetus's

  • large intestine is mostly sterile and devoid of the billions of bacteria that break down

  • our waste and make up as much as 50% of the brown pulp known as feces.

  • So the green, sticky mass that forms in a fetus's small intestines eventually becomes

  • a green, sticky, and mostly bacteria-free mass inside the baby's first dirty diaper.

  • And in a way, it's the first--and last--clean poop in anyone's life.

The little scar in the middle of your abdomen marks the place where, for about nine glorious

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