# Innies and outies **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 6, 1999, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684 "1999-06-06T00:23:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 1999, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/1 "1999-06-06T00:23:00Z")
I suppose no statistics have ever been kept regionally, nationally or internationally on the subject. Would any of you know (or hazard a guess as to) the ratio between men and women, which option is more prevalent nowadays, why we ever did have outies in the first place and what function if any (except as a lint depository in the case of the innies) a belly button has? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 1999, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/2 "1999-06-06T01:33:00Z")
I would assume outies exist because they’re easier to tie that way. What function does the bellybutton serve? As for your last question: Well, dear omniscientnot, climb up on my lap and let me tell you about the birds and the bees. . . ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 1999, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/3 "1999-06-06T02:03:00Z")
Maybe I should have phrased last part differently… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 1999, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/4 "1999-06-06T05:01:00Z")
I got this from [modbee.com](http://modbee.com) in an article about contemplating your navel: So who decides whether you traipse through life with an innie or an outie? Is it the delivery-room doctor, the person responsible for severing a baby’s umbilical cord? Not really. It’s more a matter of an infant’s innards. Outies are actually small umbilical hernias, says Dr. Marian Ascarelli, a perinatal specialist at Memorial Hospital’s Pikes Peak Maternal Fetal Medicine Center in Colorado Springs. “It’s actually a defect in the abdominal wall that’s small enough to cause a protrusion of the umbilicus,” Ascarelli says. “It’s a congenital problem; it has nothing to do with where (the cord) is cut. Sometimes, they’re repaired; sometimes, they’re left alone.” ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 1999, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/5 "1999-06-06T05:31:00Z")
Yeah, your belly button is what’s left after the remainder of the umbilical cord falls off. Peace, mangeorge * * * Work like you don’t need the money… Love like you’ve never been hurt… Dance like nobody’s watching! Source??? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 1999, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/6 "1999-06-06T06:57:00Z")
Ok…but what happens to the rest of the umbilical cord (ya know–the part still attached to the mother)? Is it just kinda hanging around in there, or… (Look–I KNOW it’s a natural life-process and all that…but this whole childbirth thing still gives me the occasional shudder. I apologize for being a spineless male whimp.) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 1999, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/7 "1999-06-06T14:10:00Z")
I heard that some injections are given through the belly button (which must be a tad painful); don’t remember exactly why this is. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 1999, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/8 "1999-06-06T14:17:00Z")
Yeah, I heard the same thing about the injections when I was a kid, it was always “Rabies shots - you have to have seven of them, all right in your bellybutton!” I don’t know if there was ever any basis in fact for this, and I just wrote it off to youthful hyperbole. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 1999, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/9 "1999-06-07T05:12:00Z")
ALright, I guess I have to admit that I’ve been given certain advantages in life by having a mother who spent my childhood years in training to become an OB/GYN. (The book I learned to read with was ‘Where Did I come From?’) To answer your question: “Ok…but what happens to the rest of the umbilical cord?” It is attached not to the mother, per se, but to the placenta (aka afterbirth), which follows the baby out. You see, Nature takes care of all these things for herself. If she didn’t, can you imagine what a mess we would have made by now trying to figure it out? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 1999, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/10 "1999-06-08T14:12:00Z")
Melatonin: you seem to be the expert here. Do you know why rabies injections have to be given through the bellybutton? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 1999, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/11 "1999-06-08T14:37:00Z")
I don’t know nothing ‘bout shootin’ no rabies! But I seriously doubt that the shots are delivered through the belly button. It just doesn’t make any sense. Doing numerous injections through thick scar tissue? Methinks I smells a boogie man. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 1999, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innies-and-outies/684/12 "1999-06-08T15:04:00Z")
Rabies shots were given in the abdomen, not the belly button. I believe I read a few years back that they came up with an improved formula and the injections are now given in the arm, but I can’t swear to that. I have no idea why they originally needed to be administered through the abdomin. Anybody? * * * “I think it would be a great idea” Mohandas Ghandi’s answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization