Health Dept. excepts challenge to help lower the state's pre-term birth rate
Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH):
Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) leaders are pledging their support to give more babies a healthy start in life by accepting a challenge to lower the state’s pre-term birth rate eight percent by 2014. The challenge was issued by Association of State and Territorial Health Officers (ASTHO) President Dr. David Lakey, and is endorsed by the March of Dimes. The goal is to lower Mississippi’s pre-term birth rate to 16.6 percent. In 2009, the baseline year, 18 percent of babies in Mississippi were born pre-term.























