Marlene on the Falciform Ligament: A Trace Before Birth

Alone this morning, Marlene writes down a small discovery: the liver has a sickle-shaped fold helping to hold it in place.

It is the falciform ligament, a thin fold of the lining inside the abdomen. It attaches the liver to the front abdominal wall and the diaphragm. Its free edge contains the round ligament of the liver—the remnant of the umbilical vein, which carried oxygen-rich blood from the placenta before birth.

That last detail is what stays with her. A fold that helps anchor an organ also holds a trace of an earlier circulation. The old route is closed, but not entirely gone.