Regional Infant and Child Mortality Review Committee--2012 final report

The 2012 annual report of the Regional Infant and Child Mortality Review Committee (RICMRC) is presented. With its mission to "review infant and child deaths so that information can be transformed into action to protect young lives," the Committee has reviewed 341 deaths in South Eastern South Dakota since its inception in 1997. In 2012, 24 deaths of children who were residents of Minnehaha, Brookings, McCook, Moody and Union counties met the criteria and all were reviewed by the interdisciplinary membership of the Committee. The manner of 10 of these deaths was natural, six of which were the outcome of congenital or long term illnesses and four deaths were sudden and unexpected. There were no sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in 2012, though there were four deaths of infants that occurred during sleep. One of these deaths was considered natural, the manner of two was considered undetermined and one accidental. In each of these four cases there were hazards in the sleep environment of the infant who died. Overall, there were 10 deaths due to accidents and this included one incident in which three children died in a house fire. Similar to previous years, there was one suicidal and one homicidal death of a child. The report provides data on trends in infant and child deaths for this region of South Dakota and provides the Committee's recommendations of community action that could prevent their future occurrence.