Out of all the babies born in South Korea, only 40 percent of the babies with foreign nationality and 60 percent of the babies with Korean nationality have received a state-funded health check-up, a government data showed Monday. A total of 39,520 foreign babies born here were eligible for a health check-up as of August, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Health Insurance Service data revealed by Rep. The figure for foreign babies may be even worse than the 40 percent estimate above, because they are not subject to Korea's mandatory birth registration system. "Children's health in the earliest stages is directly related to their lives, yet over half of the foreign babies do not receive health check-ups," said Suh. She urged the government to provide a system to keep track of all babies born here, including those without South Korean nationality.