Let’s dive deep through our blood to see what is going on inside our circulatory system! Come and check our five adorable veins and arteries facts for kids.
Arteries are the large vessels that carry blood from the heart and around to every part of your body. To remember this, think of the “a” in Artery as “Away”. The blood that the arteries carry from the lungs is full of oxygen, known as oxygenated blood. An arteriole is a small and narrow artery which is connected to the artery.
Approximately 70% of the entire blood is held by veins. Blood travels through the veins to the heart and lungs, where it can get more oxygen. The blood carried by the veins is deoxygenated blood as it doesn’t have oxygen. The largest vein in your body is the inferior vena cava. This vein returns blood from the lower part of your body all the way up to your heart. The longest vein in your body is called the saphenous vein and it is located in your leg, running from your foot up to the top of your thigh. Small narrow veins called venules link larger veins to capillaries.
Valves inside veins make sure that the blood can’t go the wrong way. Blood has to travel in one direction only. Valves are like doors, they open to allow the blood to go through and then they close quickly to stop the blood from falling back down. Sometimes the valves don’t open enough or they don’t close properly and when this happens the heart has to work extra hard to push the blood through the veins.
The movement of the blood through the heart and around the body is called circulation. The circulation system is made up of three types of blood vessels. These are arteries, veins, and capillaries and they all work together. Though blood vessels are quite small, the whole circulatory network is unbelievably long. The network of blood vessels in our body is over 60,000 miles long! Its hard to imagine that it fits inside our bodies. If you were to stretch these blood vessels out they would be long enough to go around the Earth more than twice.
Different veins and arteries are in different parts of your body and each has a separate function. A few examples of different veins and arteries are: The carotid artery is the main blood vessel that carries blood to your brain. This is vital for normal brain function. The opposite of this is the jugular vein which drains blood from your brain. The superior vena cava has a very important function as it is the main vein that brings blood to your heart from your neck, head, chest and arms. The biggest blood vessel in the body is called the aorta, this vessel carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body.
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