The mother-of-two was sentenced on Wednesday for contempt of court after flouting a court order last week to have her son vaccinated.<\/p>\n
She and her ex-husband decided at the time of their child’s birth that they would space out and delay jabs for their son.<\/p>\n
The couple separated in 2008, according to ABC News, but they shared parental custody and the father still wanted the boy vaccinated.<\/p>\n
Oakland County Court Judge Karen McDonald said that even though Bredow was the child’s primary caregiver: “Dad gets a say.”<\/p>\n
Bredow, from the Detroit suburb of Ferndale, said in court on Wednesday: “I am an educated vaccine-choice mother.”<\/p>\n
She argued that to immunise her son “goes against my beliefs”.<\/p>\n
“I would rather sit behind bars standing up for what I believe in, than giving in to something I strongly don’t believe in,” Bredow added.<\/p>\n
Anti-vaccination advocates – whose claims have been widely debunked by the medical community – fear the procedure exposes children to harm, and could be the cause of autism.<\/p>\n
Child immunisation rates in Michigan are among the worst in the nation, ranking 43rd among the 50 US states,\u00a0according to Mlive<\/a>.<\/p>\n Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center, told the BBC this is not the first time a parent has been jailed for refusing to vaccinate a child.<\/p>\n The federal government does not legislate child immunisation, only issuing recommendations while leaving requirements to states or local school districts.<\/p>\n If a parent does not comply with a school’s vaccination guidelines, the child is not permitted to attend school and the parent can be jailed for the pupil’s truancy.<\/p>\n For that reason, many anti-vaccine parents choose to home-school their children, Mrs Fisher told the BBC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n