The wife of NRL star Bryce Cartwright has given birth to a baby girl just one week after being slammed for saying she doesn’t trust hospitals and won’t vaccinate her children.
Shanelle Cartwright, 20, who shares one-year-old unvaccinated son Koa with the Gold Coast Titans star, announced the arrival of daughter Naia Eden on Instagram.
‘It’s with open hearts that we announce the birth of our darling girl Naia Eden Cartwright,’ she captioned a photo of herself breastfeeding the newborn on Friday.
‘She came roaring into this world, all guns blazing. Welcome to the wild my little lady.’
The wife of NRL star Bryce Cartwright has given birth to a baby girl just one week after being slammed for saying she doesn’t trust hospitals and won’t vaccinate her children
‘It was at this moment… He knew he’d be delivering this baby on his own,’ she wrote alongside this photo on Instagram, which appears to show Shanelle in a bathtub at their home
The Queensland-based mother shared another photo to her Instagram story on Friday of Bryce’s worried expression during her labour as she sat in what looked to be a bathtub at their home.
‘It was at this moment… He knew he’d be delivering this baby on his own,’ she wrote, adding a ‘tears of laughter’ emoji.
In early February Shanelle made some frank admissions about their anti-vax beliefs and parenting methods during during an Instagram Q&A.
Health authorities warn anti-vaxxers threaten the public’s ‘herd immunity’ against disease.
‘Immunisation is a safe and effective way to protect you and your children from harmful, contagious diseases. It also safeguards the health of other people, now and for future generations,’ the Australian government’s health department says.
‘Before vaccination campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s, diseases like tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough killed thousands of children. Today, it is extremely rare to die from these diseases in Australia.’
Between one and two per cent of parents across New South Wales refuse to vaccinate their children.
The Queensland-based mother shared another photo to her Instagram Story later on of Bryce’s worried expression during the labour
Shanelle Cartwright (left), the wife of football star Bryce Cartwright (right), revealed the couple are anti-vaxxers who no longer use nappies on their children a week ago
The young mother said during an Instagram Q&A she and Cartwright, 24, had not vaccinated their son, would not use nappies for their second child and ‘don’t trust hospitals’.
When asked by one follower whether she vaccinated her first son, Mrs Cartwright said she was firmly against injecting her children.
‘He’s not vaccinated – none of our babes will be,’ the young mother replied.
As a follow-up question the glamorous WAG was asked whether this would affect her children going to school.
But Mrs Cartwright said if unvaccinated children were one day banned from schools she already had a contingency plan in place.
‘They can go to school (so far)… if the law changes, I’ll home school before I vaccinate,’ she said.
Shanelle, 20, and Bryce, 24, welcomed their first child Koa last January and have just welcomed a daughter into their family
Mrs Cartwright admitted her footy star husband was initially against being an anti-vaxxer, bur is now firmly onboard with the method
Unvaccinated children are banned from enrolling in preschool in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland under the ‘no jab, no play’ laws.
At a federal level, the Australian government has previously introduced laws that link immunisations to benefit payments available to families.
If a family does not fully immunise their children up to the age of 19, they will not be able to claim the full amount of family tax benefit or child care benefits.
Mrs Cartwright said instead of vaccinating she and her husband focused on the ‘gut health’ of their youngsters by ‘exclusively breastfeeding’ for the first six months.
She also admitted that while Gold Coast Titans star Cartwright is now onboard with these parenting methods, he initially took 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,’ Mrs Cartwright said.
Mrs Cartwright said she was firmly against injecting children (left) and that if this meant they were banned from attending school, she would prefer to home school instead of vaccinating (right)
The glamorous WAG and her NRL star husband welcomed their first son Koa in January 2018
Mrs Cartwright said she and her husband were not planning to use nappies for their daughter (left), but admitted Cartwright was not initially sold on the unique parenting techniques
Mrs Cartwright (pictured) said instead of vaccinating she and her husband focused on the ‘gut health’ of their youngsters by ‘exclusively breastfeeding’ for the first six months
‘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 Cartwright’s admission about their highly controversial parenting techniques comes two years after the NRL star was accused of paying a woman to have an abortion.
Cartwright and a representative of his former club the Penrith Panthers, reportedly offered the footy star’s ex-lover $50,000 to terminate a pregnancy three months in.
The woman – who remained anonymous – claimed Cartwright told her he had no intention of being involved with the child.
She felt bullied and contacted the footy star’s parents at which point she discovered Cartwright was in a long-term relationship with his now-ex girlfriend.