‘We would urge parents not to play roulette with precious memories, when backing up securely is such an easy and simple thing to do,’ said a spokesperson for Nero, a back-up software developer that conducted the poll.

A fifth of respondents complained they had lost a treasured image and, despite some social media websites ‘owning your images’, 49% believe Facebook and Twitter to be the safest place to store photos.

Ninety-two per cent said they used their smartphone to capture precious memories of their children, yet 44% admitted they would lose everything if their phone was lost or broken.

‘On average, each mum captures 1.1 photos a day but 7% will snap over 100 images a month.

‘Notably, a quarter of those surveyed currently have over 200 images saved on their smartphone – with one snap-happy mum admitting to being one dropped phone away from losing 12,000 photos saved on her phone.’

Of the 67% of mothers who back up their content, 76% chose computer storage.

Nero claims many do not consider the pitfalls of storing memories on a single device.

‘Children grow up so fast that losing even a small number of images can cut out a large chunk of a child’s life.

‘Backing up is simple and easy, so there really is no excuse to forget.’