Case report

This is a case of forked umbilical cord.

Occasionally the original primordial umbilical artery fails to divide longitudinally in two umbilical arteries. The division starts at the placental end and extends towards the embryo. These cords will thus present with 3-vessel on the placental end but 2 on the fetal end. This case present the opposite situation with a normal 3-vessel cord at the fetal end, and confluence of both umbilical arteries in the cord into a single umbilcial atery at the placental end.

See more discussion on umbilical cord anomalies, please click here.

Figure 1: 3-vessel cord at the fetal end