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 the faithful began to wear a cord in honour of Saint Thomas, to obtain the grace of purity through his intercession. In the 17th century, societies were formed at different universities, the student members of which wore a cord in honour of Saint Thomas, hoping through his intercession to be protected from the dangers to which youth is generally exposed. The first Confraternity of the Cord of Saint Thomas was erected at the Catholic University of Leuven by the Belgian Dominican friar Franciscus Deurweerders in 1649, and numbered among its members all the professors and students of the Faculty of