A baby boy who was snatched from a Malaysian hospital just hours after being born could fetch up to RM20,000 ringgitdollars on the black market, a politician says.

Michael Chong, head of MCA's Public Complaints Bureau, told local media that although such cases were rare, childless couples desperate for boys were willing to pay high prices.

Chong urged the public to help recover the missing child, the subject of a nationwide search after he was grabbed from a hospital in Kedah on Sunday.

"If your neighbour was neither pregnant nor a babysitter, and you hear a baby's cry, call the public immediately if it raises your suspicions," he said.

Police official Anuwal Wahab said that kidnappings of children were on the rise, with seven cases in 2003, compared to six in 2002.

Noryati Abu Bakar, the child's 31-year-old mother who has two other boys aged 10 and five, said she had hardly even held her baby because he was taken away for treatment for a breathing problem immediately after birth.

Legal action

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

The baby's father Mohamad Nordin Derais, 34, said the hospital took no action for four hours after noticing the baby was gone, and that he would take legal action for negligence.

Nurseries at hospitals around Malaysia are now under a 24-hour watch after the incident which has shocked the nation.