By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

Migrant female spouses here suffer from malnutrition which may lead to a higher risk of having unhealthy children or a miscarriage, a state-funded institute said Friday.

They are exposed to unwanted pregnancies and abortion due to lack of information about birth control.

In a survey of 955 foreign women married to Korean men, the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs found that the respondents have an average 2.4 pregnancies.

Among them, 10.9 percent had miscarriages and 6.3 percent had abortions, while 2.1 percent had a stillbirth within five months of pregnancy and 4.2 percent gave birth to an underweight child.

About 21.9 percent said they resorted to abortion to maintain a gap between the previous baby and a new one.

Some 11.9 percent said they failed with birth control due to their ignorance and 13.1 percent said they didn't know how to get contraceptives.

One of the major reasons for the miscarriages was malnutrition, the institute said. More than 25 percent said they skip meals at least once every day, mostly because Korean food did not appeal to them. House chores, farming work and other obligations also held them back from having meals.

Only 56.9 percent said their family could afford to eat enough food while 32 percent said they cannot eat various foods and 11.1 percent said they sometimes lack food.

As a result, 17.6 percent of the respondents had a body mass index lower than 18.5, which is the bottom line for indicating they are underweight. It means their nutrition is unbalanced, the report said.

Moreover, many of the respondents did not use nearby public health services in the way that they should. They said they had never heard about the facilities, encountered communication problems or were afraid of visiting them.

``Public health service centers provide various health-related services such as regular check-ups, giving out iron pills for pregnant women, teaching breastfeeding and others. The government needs to promote health services to them,'' Kim Hye-ryeon, a researcher at the institute, said.

The report also showed the current status of some interracial marriages in the country. The average age of the respondents was 24.5 years old, which was 14.1 years younger than the average age of their husbands. The majority of the wives were from Vietnam, making up 55.2 percent, followed by the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, Mongolia and Uzbekistan at 22.9 percent, 7.4 percent, 4.5 percent, 3.4 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.

Many of the respondents did not have a specific job (75.5 percent) and very few made their own money, by working as lecturers, farmers, factory workers or restaurant waitresses.

About 59.7 percent said they could speak Korean at a beginner level, while 30 percent said they could barely do so.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr