A Victorian woman has lost a legal bid to stop her three children from receiving vaccinations for measles.

The woman went to the Victorian supreme court to challenge a children’s court order for her three children to be immunised while in the temporary care of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The supreme court dismissed her appeal on Friday and found the magistrate who made the original order had the power to make the decision “in the best interests of the child”.

The appeal centred on whether the children’s court had the power to order the children be immunised.

Justice Robert Osborn was not required to consider the risks or benefits of vaccination.

At a hearing on 22 November, the children’s father said there was more risk of getting a dog bite than measles. The father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also told the judge he once had measles and had “passed on his natural immunity” to his children.

The children, who are all aged under five, were placed in temporary state care in August following alleged breaches of family protection orders.

A month later the department said two of the children were “at high risk” from a measles outbreak and unable to attend childcare because they had not been immunised.

Under Victoria’s “no jab no play” laws, children who are not fully vaccinated cannot go to childcare.

The department asked the children’s court to allow them to be immunised and the parents objected but the magistrate ordered the immunisation.

The parents then appealed to the supreme court.

They argued temporary placement in state care under an interim accommodation order did not mean the magistrate had the power to make irreversible decisions like immunisation, or impose conditions with long-term effects.

But Osborn on Friday found there had been no error in law and upheld the magistrate’s decision.

