Actress Brooke Shields has mockingly thanked Tom Cruise for drawing attention to her book on post-natal depression when he publicly criticised the actress for using anti-depressants.

According to the Internet Movie Database, the star of the TV show "Suddenly Susan" said she had suffered post-partum depression after giving birth to her daughter and had praised the drug Paxil for helping her come back to a happier state of mind.

Shields had written about this in her book "Down Came the Rain".

Cruise caused controversy last month when he slammed Shields for her drug use and asked: "Where has her career gone?" and claimed that just taking plain vitamins would have been enough to cure her of her depression.

Shields said she was especially amazed by these comments because Cruise could not know enough about post-natal depression to tell her how to deal with it since the actor and his ex-wife Nicole Kidman had adopted two children.

Shields said: "In many ways, I think he's just validated my book. Has he had a baby? Anything that highlights the help available to the thousands of women who suffer is fine by me. Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women decide what treatment is best."