There's a bunch of different classifications of midwives and what you're looking for is a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM). CNMs are basically nurse practitioners but with a specialty in midwifery. They are fully qualified RNs with additional graduate study of ob/gyn. In most (all?) states, they must work in conjunction…

I work in the social sciences, but the area of research is how young children learn STEM processes (and how teaching can be improved in those areas). What now, Doug? Am I friend or foe?

I loooove to sleep. I'm a somewhat light sleeper, which is irritating, but other than that I have no sleep problems usually. And fortunately, Baby Tashkent generally feels the same way (we had to teach him to fall asleep on his own but once he made that discovery he was like OH YEAH THIS IS AWESOME!!! and now I have…

Yeeeeehhhp. I went to a largely clothing-optional college (there was a beach, don't judge) but it was also 1998, so.

Yep. And also substantial paid parental leave for both parents. That's a huge issue for men and a major way the patriarchy shafts everyone simultaneously. Get on it, MRAs. Do something worthwhile for a change.

Can we bring this up next time there's an article about assistive reproductive technology and everyone says, "Just adopt! Totes easy! What could possibly go wrong?"

There are rabbit and ferret mills, too. People just aren't educated on these issues, walk into a pet store, see a kitten, buy the kitten and don't think about where it came from or where they could have gotten one through rescue. That's why there are kitten mills, to supply those pet store impulse buy kittens.

This is just your requisite friendly PSA that if you go to a pet retailer and they have puppies or kittens and they do not explicitly note them as being from a specific local animal shelter, they are from puppy/kitten mills. Employees will lie and say they totally aren't. They totally are.

They meow at us because that's the way kittens communicate. They maintain their babytalk for use with humans even though in all other regards they communicate like adult cats once they are adults.

Because if you do want kids you are automatically signing yourself up for this sort of problematic bs?

Ugh yes. This is what makes me the eye-rolliest. Insurance is a benefit of employment, it is considered part of one's compensation package, so that is MY GODDAMN MONEY. It's what I get in exchange for my time and skills. If I am giving you my time and skills, I get to do whatever I want with the compensation I…

Just my synthroid as far as RX. I also take lecithin capsules in an attempt to avoid plugged milk ducts while I'm nursing because that is a sucky sucky problem if ever there was one. That's it, though.

He just turned 9 months, so it'll be a few more months yet before we can transition to non-human milk. I haven't decided yet whether I'll start him on goats milk or just go straight to cow. He loves all manner of dairy products (he eats cheese and yogurt) so hopefully he'll be cool with the fancy non-homogenized…

Tashkent is just super fantastic. He is perhaps the happiest baby that ever lived, I am pretty sure. And yes, we are still going strong with the nursing. I am kind of counting down the days until he turns 1 and I can start him on Milk What Comes From Other Mammals when we're not together, though. I want to run my pump…

Meh. My main thought was, "Who has any to spare?!" That shit is gold. Any time I hear about anyone doing complicated things with breastmilk like making kefir or yogurt or butter sculptures or whatever all I feel is insane jealousy that some women have that much just sitting around. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a tiny…

The thing that I most find lacking in science education (at all sorts of schools, not just low-SES ones) is teaching science as a process and not just a collection of facts. Being able to talk about the facts is important for all the reasons the other respondants note but how many otherwise well-educated adults per…

Dear everyone,

This is universal, not generational. I'm nearly 40 and could have written the same exact thing. I got told by my Boomer parents to go to college and in so doing I would be guaranteed a great job because all employers care about is your sparkly super-speshul BA and if you have one of those, you have it made. Little did…

I'm a professional with a Masters Degree as is my husband but we would have faced serious financial fall-out from a loss of two months worth of my income. I did not take more maternity leave than the 8 weeks I got via disability insurance because taking FMLA leave with no pay was not remotely possible. If even people…

I'm pretty sure that recent studies have shown that the majority of Americans are currently one expensive car repair away from being flat broke.