Help!

[William Burns]

My new litter had three gerbils in it and now there are only two. It seems that it died of natural causes because there werent any bite marks or scratches. At least i hope that is the case/ I have a question, is it natural for the males to chase around the female after the litter was born because i had to take out the males because they kept on bothering her. And is it allroght to pick up the mother after the babies are born or skould i let her be for a while? thanks for the help!                                                                                             Will