A three-year-old US boy shot and wounded his father and pregnant mother with a 9mm handgun that he pulled out of the woman's bag while searching for an iPad, police in New Mexico said on Sunday.

Both parents needed hospital treatment for non-life threatening injuries after the bullet went through his father's buttocks and into his mother's shoulder, Albuquerque Police Department Officer Simon Drobik said.

Saturday's shooting in New Mexico followed the December shooting of a woman by her toddler in this Idaho Walmart store (pictured here). Credit:AP

The woman, who is eight months pregnant, was being kept at the hospital for observation.