If humans spent their first 9 months of existence in fluid, why can't we breathe underwater?

Question

I know no one really knows the answer but have any of you ever thought about this?

Answer 1

we are connected to the umbilical cord

Answer 2

Someone aboved mentioned the movie Abyss... it's a interesting concept, but even THAT movie wouldn't have worked.

Why can't we breathe underwater? Well.... we just don't have the right hemoglobin to do it. When we are in the womb, the types of hemoglobin our infant bodies produce have a MUCH greater affinity for oxygen, then the adult hemoglobin we produce now.

Think of it this way.... when you are an infant... you don't use your lungs to get an oxygen supply... You rely on the blood supply of the mother, which has to supply her blood, and the baby's.... That means... once the blood reaches the baby, it already isn't as fully saturated with oxygen as itw ould have been... so baby hemoglobin as a tighter affinity for oxygen (it grabs hold of it, even when its in a smaller concentration)

As the baby mature's in the womb, before birth, it produces adult hemoglobin. By the time the baby is born, it has sufficient hemoglobin that it can breathe with it's own lungs, and can get an adequete amount of oxygen

As for the Abyss... they show the characters going in suits filled with amnotic fluid, and walking in high pressure water.... this is a neat concept... but with Adult hemoglobin, we wouldn't be able to extract enough oxygen out of the amniotic fluid to survive...

Hope this answers you question.

Answer 3

Because when we are in the womb, we are attached to the umbilical cord.

Humans dont need air to live, they need oxygen in the blood. When we're connected via umbilical cord, our mother's oxygenated blood is pumped to our bodies, thus sustaining us. Our nose is actually plugged with something (forgive me, I dont know the 'technical' term for it) that keeps the fluid from entering our lungs. Thats why when a baby is born, the doctor shove that blue plunger thing up there, to suck out the stuff plugging our nasal passages.

While in the womb a fetuses lungs mimic breathing, but they arent actually taking in anything--air or otherwise.

Hope this helped!

Answer 4

We don't breathe till we are born....we get everything we need through the umbilical cord! Then when we are born, the cord is cut and our air way is cleaned out and we start to breath on our own. We could hear, and move and maybe even see not sure about that but if we did see I would think it would be totally dark. Cool huh?

Answer 5

Of course we know the answer! In utero, fetuses are connected to the mother via an umbilical cord which delivers oxygen to the fetus. After birth, the infant must begin breathing using his/her lungs for the first time. Humans have no gills because we are not fishes!

thanks for listening.

Answer 6

We get oxygen and nutrients from our mothers blood stream through the umbilical cord while we are in the womb. Once outside the womb, we use our lungs to aquire oxygen and convert it for use in the boodstream. Our lungs are not designed like gills to extract oxygen immersed in water.

Answer 7

Maybe they breath air through the Umbilical cord
because blood carries oxygen
Yes,I have often wondered about that too

Answer 8

it's because we didn't breath with our lungs when we were in the womb....our oxygen was given through the umbilical cord connected from our mommies....

Answer 9

Of course we know the answer, and I suspect that you haven't really thought.

It's because you're not connected to your mum by an umbilicus.

Answer 10

Our oxygen is supplied by our mothers in the womb, which in turn is supplied by the air, not water.

Answer 11

we spent 9months in the womb but we dont breath that water..