Facebook has reported a video of a sobbing baby being repeatedly immersed in a bucket of water to law enforcement authorities.

The social network has faced controversy over the "upsetting and disturbing" two-minute clip, which shows an unidentified woman forcefully dunking a distressed infant into water.

At one point, the baby is dangled upside down by its feet.

On Thursday, a Facebook spokesperson insisted that the video was not in breach of its rules, and "depicted a form of baby yoga".

This assessment is understood to have been made by internal moderators at the site.

The company has said the video is being removed from pages which "support or encourage this behaviour" - but the footage, which comes with a graphic content warning, can still be posted by people who "are condemning it or raising awareness about it".

Children's charities are warning they are extremely concerned for the welfare of the infant, who appears in the two-minute clip. There are calls for the video to be taken down.

But Facebook has warned that removing such content - and similar items - would prevent charities, news organisations and users from "raising awareness of the atrocities which are going around the world".

It said changing its practices would mean other videos - such as clips which exposed animal abuse and the cruelty encountered by people living under oppressive regimes - could not be shared.

In a statement, Facebook said: "In cases like these, we face a difficult choice: balancing people's desire to raise awareness of behaviour like this against the disturbing nature of the video."

"In this case, we are removing any reported instances of the video from Facebook that are shared supporting or encouraging this behaviour. In cases where people are raising awareness or condemning the practice, we are marking reported videos as disturbing".