Already, while you were developing in your mother’s womb, your heart was beating! The heart is in place from the first weeks of pregnancy, it is the first organ to develop. It is the organ without which life is no longer. The formation of the heart starts from the second week of intrauterine life. Its final architecture is established at two months of pregnancy.
What is it used for ?
The heart allows blood to flow through the veins and arteries. The vein is the vessel that carries blood from organs and muscles to the heart. The vein being a vessel which, from the heart, distributes blood to the whole body. The heart is a muscle that acts as a pump. It is hollow and constantly contracts and relaxes.
The blood, pumped, is then propelled. The beating of the arteries creates the pulse that you can feel at the level of the wrist for example (we speak of ulnar or radial pulse), but also at the level of the neck (carotid pulse), of the ankle (posterior tibial pulse) … The pulse is heart rate, which is the number of heartbeats per minute. A child’s heart rate is faster than that of an adult. It can be more than 100 beats per minute at rest. Logically, the number of beats per minute increases with the effort, because your body needs more oxygen and therefore the blood must circulate faster to distribute it.
Did you know that heartbeats vary throughout life, but also from one individual to another or even from one species to another? For example, the bigger an animal, the slower its heart beats. That of the whale, for example, beats nine times per minute while that of the hummingbird in flight 1,200 times per minute.
Where is he ?
The heart is located in the thorax near both lungs. To get an idea of the size of this organ you can close your fists and bring them together. It is as big as a large orange or a small grapefruit. It is located in the vast majority of cases on the left. But there are people whose heart is on the right. It is exceptional, but possible.
It is made up of two main parts: the left part receives the blood rich in oxygen (to be distributed) and the right one receives the blood rich in carbon dioxide (to be eliminated). Each of these parts has two chambers, an atrium at the top and a ventricle at the bottom.
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