Post-Partum S.O.S.

Who will take care of today’s kimpatorin — postpartum mother? Amanya, who “cleans a whole apartment in four hours, reads to the children in three languages and loves them like her own?” Gittel, who “runs to the gas range and cooks up suppers to last a week?” Tanya, who “folds clothes like nobody else this side of Kiev?” Or Ida, who “cures post-partum depression better than a drug store?”

These four Russian immigrants work for Kimpatorin Aid, a volunteer women’s organization founded seven years ago whose goal is to help postpartum mothers and their families during the days (or weeks) of stressful transition after the birth of a baby.

Administered by volunteers who receive phone requests and confer nightly (except on the Sabbath), Kimpatorin Aid matches its immigrant homemakers’ skills to the kimpatorins’ needs of the following day. Calls come from all over the metropolitan area, although most are from Orthodox women in Flatbush, Boro Park, Williamsburg and Queens.

Kimpatorin Aid offers help — equally and without question — to those who can and cannot pay. For further information, contact: Kimpatorin Aid, 202 Keap Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211-7916, (718)384-4929