The police have launched a nationwide search for a baby snatched just hours after being born from a public hospital, police said today, as the parents appealed for the return of their child.

"We have alerted all our units at border stations. We are serious in finding the baby," a police chief in Kedah told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that this was the first such incident in the district.

Just six hours after his birth on Sunday, the baby boy, whose parents are factory workers, was kidnapped from the Sungai Petani hospital in Kedah.

Baby snatching is rare in Malaysia and the incident caused shock and outrage from the parents.

Noryati Abu Bakar, the 31-year-old mother of the baby, pleaded for her son's quick return.

"Please do not harm him. He is not well. Please give him back to us," she told AFP .

Noryati said she had hardly had the chance to cuddle her third child, since he had a respiratory problem and had to be kept in the paediatric ward.

"I do not know who would commit such a crime. I have no enemies," said the baby's father Mohamad Nordin Derais, 34, who works as a store assistant at a biscuit factory.

The couple have two boys aged 10 and five.