We are writing a letter to express our concerns with a recent publication in your journal by Calderon-Margalit et al, regarding the use of psychotropic medications in pregnancy.

Our main concern was with the content of the abstract. We are aware that although it is not good practice, many individuals read only the abstracts of journal articles, which are designed to summarize the relevant information about the study. There are many reasons for this, including lack of full text access and insufficient time to review the entire article. Studying medication use in pregnancy is complex and sometimes controversial, particularly surrounding the use of antidepressants.

We believe that the authors omitted certain information from the abstract that was clear in the text. The authors’ cohort was documented as 2793 women, and they reported that benzodiazepine was highly associated with an increased risk of preterm delivery. The reporting in the abstract suggested that the entire cohort were psychotropic medication users. It is only when one reads the text, that it becomes apparent that the actual sample size of psychotropic medication users was only 10.7% (300/2793) of their cohort. In addition, decreasing the sample size further, hydroxyzine, an antihistamine, was listed as a psychotropic drug (n = 107). This decreases the sample size to an even smaller number, which is insufficient to make a definitive conclusion regarding any adverse effects. We can only wonder how many health care providers, after reading only the abstract, may have given their patients inappropriate information. It is important to treat psychiatric illness during pregnancy to ensure the best outcome for both the mother and child and unambiguous information is necessary in decision making regarding appropriate treatment.