“In the womb we have eyes and see not, ears and hear not. There in the womb we are fitted for works of darkness, all the while deprived of light…”
From “Death’s Duel”, the final sermon delivered by the English poet and clergyman John Donne on February 25, 1831
I have always seen the womb as a dark place, devoid of light. But is it?
Anyone who has performed laparoscopic surgery knows that light makes it through the abdominal wall (but only red wavelengths).
There’s only one paper I could find that addresses whether intra-abdominal light can make it across the uterine wall: Alone in the dark? Modeling the conditions for visual experience in human fetuses by Marco Del Guidice. Dr. Del Guidice’s models predict that once the light is in the abdomen it will make it through the muscular wall of the uterus… but only 0.1-1% of the light.
Which means, if that’s true, that the developing fetus is bathed intermittently in a soft, red light… quite an image, perhaps one that is worthy of some new metaphors.
