Medial funiculi furcata: a rare umbilical cord alteration

The umbilical cord is important for fetal life, newborn prognosis and fetal programming of adult disease. It is important to understand its anatomical features and how they relate to perinatal outcomes. Literature has described anatomical abnormalities in the umbilical cord in relation to the number of vessels, coiling direction, number and depth of coils, insertion, knots, length, diameter, entanglement and constrictions. Each feature represents a potential risk for fetal and neonatal prognosis. This article presents two case studies with unusual anatomical abnormalities of the umbilical cord, the first in a 34-week newborn and the other in a 14-week malformed fetus, both with a partial medial membranous separation of the umbilical cord vascular structures. The unusual macroscopic anatomical abnormalities in these cases were classed as medial funiculi furcata.