Reducing Infant Mortality
One of Governor Daugaard's top priorities is to promote the health and well-being of South Dakota's children. As part of that effort, he created the Governor's Infant Mortality Task Force in 2011. The goal of the task force is to explore solutions to ensure that more South Dakota babies live past their first birthday. The Governor asked the First Lady to chair this task force.
"It was disheartening to learn that an average of 79 babies die before their first birthdays each year in South Dakota," said the First Lady. "The death of even one South Dakota baby is one too many."
"I'm confident the dedicated experts on this task force can identify some concrete ways to start bringing those numbers down, and I'm looking forward to working with them."
Experts from the private and public sector to include doctors, nurses, and health policy experts were brought together to find solutions to this important problem. For more information about the task force, its members, and a link to presentations from previous meetings please
click here.