[Prescription of psychotropic medicines to pregnant women in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France].

Aim: Prescription of psychotropic medicines carries risks to pregnancy. It is therefore appropriate to measure the prescription rate of these compounds in pregnant women.

Method: We studied the prescription rate for psychotropic agents to pregnant women from the Cnamts medicines reimbursement data and we compared this to prescriptions in non-pregnant women in the same age group.

Results: There is a fall in the use of psychotropic agents in women during pregnancy compared to a non-pregnant population of the same age. Pregnant women receive 2.17 times less psychotropic agents. Nevertheless, approximately one out of every twenty women is prescribed a proprietary product with known risk to the neonate and four out of a thousand are prescribed a proprietary product which carries a risk of malformation during the first trimester.

Conclusion: Medical practice takes account of embryo-fetal risk in prescribing psychotropic agents in general although more communication is needed about the risk of some compounds during pregnancy.