We’ve all laughed at a baby’s funny faces, adorable giggles, and even their surprising farts. But what if we told you that the most bizarre antics happened long before they even took their first breath? That’s right, while tucked safely in the womb, you were already a master of the unusual. Get ready to have your mind blown as we reveal some truly strange things you definitely did while still in utero.
You Were an Unexpected Invader
Picture this: just one week after conception, you, a tiny, fluid-filled sac, embarked on a mission. Your target? The thick, sponge-like membrane of your mother’s womb. This wasn’t a gentle arrival; it was a full-on invasion! Cells died in masses, blood vessels burst everywhere, and tiny roots sprouted from your invading cells, paralyzing your mother’s blood vessels and reshaping them to fit your needs. Sounds like a scene from a horror film, doesn’t it?
This dramatic process was the beginning of your placenta, a vital organ that acted as your lifeline. Through it, your mother supplied all the nutrition and fresh oxygen you needed to grow, and in return, all your waste material was sent back to her.
But here’s a mind-boggling fact: you didn’t just send waste back. Some of your cells actually crossed over to your mother. Blood tests reveal that mothers carry cells from their children for decades after pregnancy. Even more incredible, stem cells from the fetus can migrate to the mother’s heart, transforming into pulsating heart cells to help repair damage. Talk about leaving a lasting impression!
You Once Had a Tail
By the start of week five, you looked less like a human and more like a prawn. Your tiny, transparent body was curled up, head bowed towards a long tail. Don’t worry, it disappeared later, leaving only the bony stump that now hurts when you fall on your bottom. But why grow a tail in the first place?
Consider the embryos of a lizard, a chicken, or an elephant – you’ll find the same prawn-like creature. This fundamental form is orchestrated by genes inherited from a common ancestor who roamed the primitive oceans hundreds of millions of years ago. Essentially, we are all reconstructed fish.
Bearing this in mind, many seemingly illogical facts about your body suddenly make sense. Take the small vertical groove running from your upper lip to your nose, known as the philtrum. It doesn’t serve a specific purpose today; it’s simply a remnant of how your face was formed. Initially, your face consisted of three separate parts: your eyes sat on either side of your head like a fish, and your nostrils were on top. Slowly, each part began to shift towards a central point. Your nostrils crept down from your forehead, your eyes moved towards the middle, and eventually, all these parts converged just below where your nose is now. The philtrum is the only remaining evidence – a subtle reminder of a time when you looked completely different.
Your Fingers Were Sculpted by Mass Cell Suicides
Around the same time your tail made its appearance, tiny shoots emerged on each side of your body, destined to become your arms and legs. The wings of a chicken and the massive legs of a hippopotamus begin in precisely the same manner. Even whale embryos exhibit similar shoots, despite never developing arms or legs; their forelimbs become flippers, and their hindlimbs are reduced to a few small bony stumps.
In your case, these shoots grew outwards until they resembled tiny paddles. Initially, your fingers were webbed, but in week eight, a remarkable transformation occurred through coordinated mass cell suicide.
It began with your future finger cells sending out “death signals.” Upon receiving these signals, neighboring cells started to degrade their proteins. Their DNA strands, which cells normally protect fiercely, were sliced into tiny pieces by scissor proteins. Everything was destroyed, leaving behind crumpled bags of cellular remains. Scavenger cells then moved in, tidying up the waste, gradually cleaning the space between your fingers. One cell death at a time, that paddle became a living, articulated hand.
You Drank Your Own Urine
Yes, you read that correctly. Around 10 weeks after conception, you started drinking fetal water and then peeing it out again. This means you spent several months bathing in your own urine, and incredibly, even drinking from this “polluted” swimming pool.
However, this seemingly disgusting habit was both vital and ingenious. Firstly, your mother ensured your watery home was regularly cleaned by sifting waste out of the fetal water and into her blood. Secondly, your organs got some much-needed practice. Your kidneys, which actually took you three attempts to build, began filtering blood and producing urine.
Simultaneously, you prepared for one of the most important actions after birth: drinking milk. While your intestines absorbed nutrients from the fetal water, your cheeks grew chubbier and your sucking muscles developed. You might even have trained your taste buds! Everything that entered your mother’s blood could end up in your underwater home, including flavors from the food she ate. Researchers who sampled fetal water from pregnant women could easily tell who had eaten garlic, and studies show babies often prefer foods their mother consumed regularly during pregnancy.
One sip at a time, you were preparing for life on the outside.
Your Brain Sacrificed Cells to Become What It Is Today
Your nerve cells didn’t have an easy start. Born from stem cells deep within the brain, they embarked on a winding journey to their new homes. The brain constructs itself from the inside out, layer by layer, with the deepest, most primitive areas forming first. The outermost layer, responsible for advanced brain functions, develops at the end of fetal development. To reach these outer parts, nerve cells latch onto supporting cells that sprout long tendrils through the brain layers, climbing like tiny snails up a blade of grass.
Once a nerve cell finally reached its new home, the real challenge began. Long fibers, the literal “wires” of your nervous system, grew out in all directions. Each cell needed to connect to the right place to communicate with sensory cells, muscles, or other nerve cells.
As soon as a fiber reached its target, it picked up a protein message and sent it back to the cell’s core, switching on the genes that would secure the cell’s future. If the message didn’t arrive in time, the cell assumed it failed to connect and would die, shriveling up just like the cells between your fingers.
This unhappy fate awaited many of your nerve cells because you actually produced too many of them. The nerve cells were in competition, and only those that made the best connections survived. Many nerve cells sacrificed themselves to make your brain as good as it is.
Despite being one of the first organs you started constructing, your brain is the last to be truly “finished.” In fact, you can never truly say it’s complete. Everything you learn and remember leads to physical changes in the connections between your nerve cells. By the time you finish reading this article, your brain will be slightly different from when you started. Your brain is your life project.
Isn’t it fascinating to think about the incredible journey you undertook before you even saw the light of day? What other hidden biological processes do you think are happening right under our noses?
