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Last Updated: March 10, 1997
![[David Gates]](../images/david.jpg)
SUBJECT: Delivery at midnight...
AUTHOR: David Gates, his wife Becky, and four of their five children - Lina, Trina, Carlos, and Kristopher, work together with Becky's sister and family, the Burgdorffs, in a medical aviation program in the jungles of Guyana, South America.
DATE: February 7, 1997
Dear Family,
I wish a Happy Sabbath to everyone. This morning on the radio, I was advised regarding a midnight delivery which occured last night.
Evidently, about 1:30am, some ladies came looking for Becky and Betsy to come assist with a problem. They normally do their own deliveries, but had had complications with this one. The baby had been born, but the placenta was not being expelled. They had waited quite a while and finally came for help.
The girls found that the chord had not been cut yet since the tradition is to wait until the placenta is first expelled. When they started to clamp and cut the chord, almost everyone objected, but finally consented as long as a large piece was left on the baby. Immediately after cutting the chord, the baby was allowed to breastfeed, and within 15 minutes, the placenta was out. Though normally, pitocin is used in the US by injection to expel the placenta, Don (my brother and 4th year medical student at LLU) confirmed from Georgetown that the body normally would produce oxytocin when the baby starts breast feeding, so the actions taken were right on.
Unlike Mom Duerksen and my mother who have plenty of OB experience, we are having to pick things up again, years after having studied them in nursing school. We look forward to some family visits to assist in some community health teaching. And am thankful for the professional backup of two physicians and a medical student when we have questions.
The youth of Caribbean Union College church have asked me to have the talk to them today about mission service. I will be making an invitation both to the youth and to the large college church, inviting our young people to consider one year of voluntary mission service on the front lines during their college years. I have been approached by so many students who are thrilled with what God is doing for and with us in Guyana, and they want to be a part of it. If only our youth worldwide would catch the vision of service, imagine what could be done by God's power. The reward is joy in your work which cannot be bought at any price.
Happy Sabbath,
David Gates
You may write to David at: gates@andrews.edu
Last Updated: March 10, 1997