Welcome to the lab everyone! Today's video is going to be a
little bit different, as we usually teach anatomy from the full bodies behind me.
Today we're going to teach from this amazing little fetus that has
already educated millions of people.
We'll talk about the story of how this came to be, how it was donated to us,
and even some of the mysteries surrounding the fetus, such as, gestational age,
how many years this little body has been teaching people,
and of course discuss some of the most miraculous concepts about how us humans develop.
Let's do this!
So, before I unveil the fetus here I do want to have this discussion or this talk
about cadaveric education and specifically the difference between teaching say from a fetus,
versus a full adult body that's lived a full life and chose to donate their bodies to science.
Yes, there's a little bit more tragedy associated with a fetus dying
or any young person for that matter.
But, let me give you guys a little bit of a shift
in perspective or at least our perspective on this.
Justin and I get asked all the time, does it bother you guys to work with the dead?
To do dissections, to remove tissues, remove organs, and things of that nature?
Without hesitation we say no,
because we believe that cadaver labs are much more about life than they are about death.
Now that may sound a little ironic because when you
walk into an anatomy lab you see deceased bodies.
However, the dead teach the living.
What we mean by that is all the thousands of students that have come through here,
the millions that have been on our online platforms can learn from
these bodies can now go out and help the living live happier and healthier lives.
Think about a healthcare professional going to school and learning from a full body or an adult
body or even a fetus and taking that knowledge into patient care, and all the people they
interact with on a day-to-day basis, to again, help them live happier and healthier lives.
So the people and the families that choose to donate these bodies to science leave this
priceless anatomical legacy behind so that we can be educated to continue to help the living.
So now that I got that out of the way, let's take a look at this amazing body.
Are you ready?
Here we go.
So as you can see, amazing fetus here and I want you guys to think about
the gestational age or in other words how far along the fetus is.
We're talking like 10 weeks, 20 weeks,
30 weeks, first trimester, second trimester, third trimester?
You can see a very well developed head that's starting to get more
proportional with the rest of the body.
You can see the ear there, and the upper limb with a well-developed hand and fingers there.
You can look closely there you can see some fuzz or some hair developing on the back of the head.
Before I rotate this around to show you the umbilical cord in the placenta
and even male or female I want to tell you about how this body was donated to us.
There was a high school teacher that had been teaching for over 30 years with this fetus.
So over 30 years of education for high school students.
That was eight years ago when this body was donated to us.
So we're knocking on the door of 40 years, maybe even 40 plus years
that we've educated thousands in our lab, millions with our online platform.
This little body has done quite the educational feat but there were two
mysteries or two pieces of information that we weren't given when we were donated this body.
One, was the exact gestational age.
We were left with making our best guess based upon the developmental features.
So let's keep rotating this around so you can see some of these other features.
Again you can see the arm more fully now,
the umbilical cord coming into view around the leg there, and as we continue to rotate
around you can see the well-developed feet, and even the genitalia, which we're seeing male.
If I continue to rotate around you can see all of this tissue, or the structure is the placenta.
So we kind of used our best estimation based on the developmental features
of the fetus to estimate that the gestational age is anywhere from about 26 to 30 weeks.
Essentially that transition from second to third trimester.
So that means there was about eight to twelve more weeks of development
left depending on where we fell in that 26 to 30 week period.
So a lot more growth or size development.
Speaking of size, let me give you some more context about the actual size of this fetus.
Here's my hand, let's show it in the frame here so you can actually see
the context of the size of my hand to the actual size of the fetus.
Now, part of the reason I'm also wanting to show you this is because I'm going to show you a real,
normal size uterus comparing it to the size of this fetus.
About here to here I measured before the video is about eight inches long,
and I'll show you that comparison on the uterus in just a second.
But, before I do that I just want to mention the last mystery surrounding this fetus.
We don't know what happened.
What I mean is, we don't know what happened to mom,
and we don't know the exact circumstances surrounding the death of the fetus.
What we do know is that the family still chose to donate the body to science and education
which is absolutely amazing and there's this interesting concept and discussion
that we often have in this lab regarding this particular fetus.
Remember, 26 to 30 weeks in gestational age.
There have been plenty of pre-term fetuses or
pre-term babies born in that 26 to 30 week period and they've survived.
It makes us wonder, because, remember this fetus is almost 40 years old.
If born in 2021 would this fetus still be alive?
Did we have enough advancement in medical knowledge and medical technology to do that?
So again it kind of pushes that idea of furthering our medical knowledge
and pushing those boundaries to the point, where can we continue to get better
and even save more lives earlier in the gestational period?
So now let's show you a real uterus.
We actually have two bodies we're going to use.
One we're going to show the uterus where
we reflect the abdominal wall up and look at it from above.
Then we've got another body that we've cut in half
so you'll see a little bit less than half of the uterus but you'll be able to see inside.
I think you'll be surprised about the size of each uterus.
So let's take a look at the first body, I'm going to reflect the abdominal wall.
This is the pubic bone, this is about where the six-pack muscle would be.
Up this direction would be the rib cage.
As I reflect that away you'll see this fatty tissue called the Greater Omentum.
It's an apron of fat, all of us have it.
I'll reflect that away and then finally we see all the Small Intestines here.
We've got to reflect this away too
and finally, once I reflect all that tissue away we have exposed the uterus right here.
So essentially this is the top of the Uterus right here.
Some other cool structures, if I pull down here,
pull this tissue up here, the uterine tube runs in this connective tissue right through here.
Let me get my hand out of the way.
It runs in that tissue right there, but the tube is on the top edge of that tissue here,
and I'm pinching the tube with the probe there.
I never can actually get to the end of the uterine tube right there.
Now sometimes it's referred to as the Fallopian Tube, but we prefer the Uterine Tube.
Let me show you the other important structure,
and that is the Ovary which produces the eggs or the Ova, plural for eggs in the technical sense.
But we'll use this to talk about the size variation, when we're talking about a
regular-sized Uterus without a fetus developing, and then how it changes during pregnancy.
Let me show you the other body here.
Over here you can see this is the cut in half right through here, and specifically this is
the right half of the Uterus.
You can see this is the inside, the majority of this tissue is made of smooth muscle.
Over here again the Ovary, and that Uterine Tube you can see
embedded in that tissue right through here.
Now what's interesting about this, when we're talking about fertilization.
The Ovary releases the egg on about day 14,
that egg then enters the Uterine Tube and gets in that Uterine Tube.
The sperm cells will then travel up, enter into the Uterus, go up into the Uterine Tube and this
is typically where fertilization takes place. That fertilized egg or that Zygote will then
descend down into the uterus and implant into the wall of the Uterus.
That is crazy to think about, we started as one
cell, it's a relatively large cell, but one cell nonetheless.
Then it develops into this. and then eventually continues to grow into this.
I mean think about that, that's crazy.
Now, we go a little bit further and talk about the size of the uterus.
Let's talk about the regular size, the regular size of the Uterus, again right here.
It's about three inches long.
So where my finger would be going underneath there
that would be about three inches in that vertical length there and then it's about two inches wide.
Two inches wide and then one inch thick.
So it's kind of easy to remember three, two, one, as far as inches.
Now that's a Uterus that's never been pregnant.
When the Uterus does get impregnated or start to have a developing fetus,
think about the changes that have to undergo inside the Uterine cells.
They have to actually undergo Hyperplasia and Hypertrophy.
In other words the cells have to divide and also get
larger to accommodate that fetus developing inside.
So go back to those measurements, one more time three, two, one.
Approximately three inches long, two inches wide, and one inch thick, but those are just the
outside measurements of the uterus. Remember, the fertilized egg or the
Zygote is going to implant on the inside lining of the uterus and then
grow and expand within again creating quite the remarkable change in the Uterus.
So everybody, thank your mom.
If you are a mom, you're awesome.
Thank yourself if you donated the sperm.
Good job.
Thanks for watching the video everyone.
Hopefully you learned something new
and I want to take this time to say thank you for all the support.
We recently crossed one million subscribers on Youtube and we thought that was pretty great
because we never thought we would be to this point, but here we are.
So thank you for that!
Please like, subscribe, if you're not already a subscriber, and blow up the comment section below.
Let us know what you think, give us some ideas for future videos and speaking of support you
may have noticed that we have finished our anatomy artwork wall and we have some artwork available.
For those who are interested we'll put the link below and you guys can go check it out.
See if there's anything you like there.
Until next time, stay safe out there and we'll see you in the next video.