For the second year in a row, South Dakota has seen a decline in the number of babies that die before their first birthday. The infant death rate fell to 5.9 in 2014; down from 6.5 deaths per 1,000 births in 2013. Colleen Winter is the Division Director for Health and Medical Services, and says the Governor’s Task Force on Infant Mortality has been increasing prenatal education since 2011…
Winter says the task force concentrated on teaching safe sleep techniques and better prenatal care. About 72 percent of pregnant women in the state received prenatal care in their first trimester last year, but almost 15 percent still continued smoking during their pregnancy….
South Dakota is 35th in the country in terms of the number of infant deaths. Iowa leads the country in the lowest infant mortality rate of 4.14. Minnesota is 12th, and Nebraska is 16th in the nation.