FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (CBS NEWS) -- A 24-year-old U.S. Navy sailor is accused of deserting her post after having a baby.

Ana Lucia Gnecco remains on a military hold in a Florida jail Friday after being arrested at her parents’ home Wednesday. Gnecco’s daughter was born in August.

Her father, Armando Rodriguez, tells the SunSentinel the Navy is claiming “she basically went AWOL.”

The newspaper reports Gnecco, a seaman quartermaster, was supposed to return to her base in Portsmouth, Virginia, on Jan. 14.

“The arrest was the last resort,” said Christina Johnson, a Navy public affairs officer for the medical center. “You’re going to want to try and work with the sailor to get them back, because the consequences for desertion are serious. She was in contact with her command and with the Navy’s arm that would bring her back to duty. All efforts were made to get her back to work, but she chose to stay there.”

After missing a return date by 30 days, “it’s considered desertion,” Johnson said.

Rodriguez says he hopes she will be discharged. He says Gnecco’s family -- including sisters and her mother -- have helped care for the baby.

“I hope that she goes back up there and they have a hearing and she is released,” Rodriguez said, according to the SunSentinel.  “There is no point in keeping her.”