The baby who drowned while her teen mum was on Facebook.

Losing “the only source of happiness in her life” was punishment enough for a young mother whose nine-month-old baby daughter drowned in a bath full to the brim as she chatted on Facebook, a magistrate ruled yesterday.

The mother was just 17 at the time the incident occurred in a block of flats in Cospicua on August 31, 2012.

On her arraignment, the mother, whose name cannot be published by court order because she was a minor at the time, insisted she “was not crazy” and “loved her daughter”.

Though the entire case was heard behind closed doors, it resulted from the judgment that the mother was bathing her baby in the bathroom, where the police found the bath full to capacity.

The woman had left her daughter alone and gone to the bedroom to chat with a friend on Facebook between 3.29pm and 4.23pm and that was when tragedy struck.

In her considerations, Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit noted that the young mother was bringing up her daughter on her own and was doing her best to give her a good upbringing.

However, she noted that this had not been enough to prevent her daughter’s premature death, and the teenager had demonstrated “sheer negligence” when she left the baby alone in the bath.

The magistrate took into consideration the fact that the woman was young and inexperienced and also had lived through her own fair share of a difficult upbringing. In fact, her probation officer informed the court that she had spent most of her childhood in homes because of the “abusive environment” in her parents’ house.

The teenager had also spent time at Mount Carmel Hospital.

Furthermore, the young mother had no knowledge of how to be a parent, and what she was going through was all a learning curve.

The probation officer told the court the mother had described her daughter to her as being “the only source of happiness in her life”.

Given the circumstances of the case and the fact that the young mother had already faced the most severe punishment possible in losing her baby, the magistrate sentenced her to two years in prison suspended for three years.

The young woman was also placed under a three-year supervision order to receive help to address her problems.

Police Inspector Robert Said Sarreo prosecuted. Lawyers Michael and Lucio Sciriha represented the woman.