OTTAWA - The federal government is studying the issue of "birth tourism" in the hope of better understanding how many women travel to Canada to have babies who are born Canadian citizens.

This comes after new research showed that more babies are born in Canada to foreign residents than Statistics Canada realized.

Using numbers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, researcher Andrew Griffith found more than 3,200 babies were born here to women who weren't Canadian residents in 2016 -- compared with the 313 babies recorded by Stats Canada.

Griffith says the finding suggests not only that the numbers are higher than previously reported, but that it's a growing trend.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen says his department has commissioned research to get a better picture of the scope of the issue in Canada.