Other Names:
Omphalocele

Symptoms:
A grape to basketball sized skin sac in the belly button.

Cause:
—"Omphalos" means navel, and "kele" means hernia. This sac in the navel, which is a birth defect, is lined with the membrane lining of the abdominal cavity (the peritoneum). It may contain fat and/or intestinal loops that can be pushed back into the abdominal cavity.

This flaw, called a "hernial ring," occurs more frequently than might be expected. The mother did not receive enough vitamin A and/or zinc during pregnancy.

Treatment:
• If the hernial ring is larger than your finger tip, surgery is needed, to correct it.

• If the defect is about the size of the diameter of your finger tip, the following method has been used with good success, to heal it at home without surgery:

• Place a golf-ball sized ball of virgin wool on the hernia and tape it firmly down to the level of the skin's surface.

• Three times a day, remove the wool ball. Make sure the fat is pushed back into the belly cavity; carefully use your finger to do this.

• At the same time, rub the hernial ring in a rotary fashion for several minutes, to irritate it.

• Over a period of several weeks or months, the defect will fill in and entirely heal; so no surgery will be needed.