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 great ecclesiastical orders. The main object and duty of these societies were, above all, the practice of piety and works of charity. There are various confraternities of the Cord, whose members wear a cord as insignia just as members of other confraternities wear a scapular. There are in the Church three archconfraternities and one confraternity the members of which wear a cord or cincture. "(This is also known as the "Archconfraternity of the Black Leather Belt of Saint Monica, Saint Augustine and Saint Nicholas of Tolentine".)" The oldest and most celebrated of these Confraternities of the Cord is probably the