Shanelle Cartwright, the wife of NRL football player Bryce Cartwright, has shared her decision not to vaccinate her children.

The 20-year-old, who married the Gold Coast Titans player last year, spoke about the couple’s controversial parenting methods in a Q&A on her Instagram page.

Shanelle, who is expecting the birth of her second child in the coming days, said that both her one-year-old son Koa and her second child will not be vaccinated.

“He’s not vaccinated,” Shanelle said of her son Koa.

“None of our babes will be.”

 

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A post shared by S H A N E L L E (@shanellept) on May 11, 2018 at 12:48am PDT

Responding to another question, Shanelle explained that she first became part of the controversial anti-vax movement after “lots of research”.

And although her husband was initially against the idea, he soon changed his mind after some convincing.

“I remember he [Bryce] was so defensive when I first brought it up and got angry at me for even suggesting that we shouldn’t vaccinate,” the mother said.

“And then he read a package insert and a few pages of one of Dr Suzanne Humphries’ books and saw vaccines under a different light. And now we’re here.”

The Australian Government highly recommends all children are vaccinated. With programs such as “No Jab, No Play” implemented around the country, state governments have made the importance of vaccinations known in Australian preschools and schools.

In New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, unvaccinated children are banned from enrolling in preschool. Approximately one to two per cent of parents in NSW refuse to vaccinate their children.

Although Shanelle's children may struggle to be admitted to schools, she said she'd rather choose to home school her children than vaccinate them.

Shanelle also shared that although Bryce and herself were vaccinated up until high school, they are no longer keeping their own vaccinations up to date.

"We now obviously don't vaccinate ourselves and are in the (slooooow) process of healing," she wrote.

Earlier this year, the World Health Organisation blamed the rise of measles on the anti-vax movement.

"Immunisation is a proven tool for controlling and eliminating life-threatening infectious diseases and is estimated to avert between 2 and 3 million deaths each year," the WHO website states.