Umbilical cord these branches joins with the hepatic portal vein (connecting to its left branch), which carries blood into the liver. The second branch (known as the ductus venosus) bypasses the liver and flows into the inferior vena cava, which carries blood towards the heart. The two umbilical arteries branch from the internal iliac arteries and pass on either side of the urinary bladder into the umbilical cord, completing the circuit back to the placenta. In absence of external interventions, the umbilical cord occludes physiologically shortly after birth, explained both by a swelling and collapse of Wharton's jelly in response to a
Confraternities of the Cord Benedict XIII, "Pretiosus" (26 April 1727, sect. 9) and in the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences (8 May 1844). Confraternities of the Cord Confraternities of the Cord are pious associations of the faithful, the members of which wear a cord or cincture in honour of a saint, to keep in mind some special grace or favour which they hope to obtain through his intercession. In the early Church virgins wore a cincture as a sign and emblem of purity, and hence it has always been considered a symbol of chastity as well as of mortification and humility. The