Making fair comparisons in pregnancy medication safety studies: An overview of advanced methods for confounding control

Abstract

Understanding the safety of medication use during pregnancy relies on observational studies: However, confounding in observational studies poses a threat to the validity of estimates obtained from observational data. Newer methods, such as marginal structural models and propensity calibration, have emerged to deal with complex confounding problems, but these methods have seen limited uptake in the pregnancy medication literature. In this article, we provide an overview of newer advanced methods for confounding control and show how these methods are relevant for pregnancy medication safety studies.