I'M AFRAID some Australian researchers have blown my cover.

It's like this: Since becoming a mother four years ago, I have been attributing my scatter- brained behaviour to "baby brain" – a widely debated and oft-accepted condition whereby a woman's memory deteriorates rapidly because of pregnancy and childbirth.

Left the car keys in the fridge? Baby brain.

Gave the wrong change to a customer? Baby brain.

Left the house without any clothes on? Oh, yeah, definitely baby brain.

With the birth of my second child, Lucien, four months ago, my forgetfulness has intensified.

I stood up both my gynaecologist and my dentist, because it slipped my mind that I had made appointments.

I invited an old friend over for dinner, and then promptly forgot about it – until I came home from the supermarket and met her at the door.

While interviewing a 1980s American singer and Grammy Award winner, I was puzzled when he kept evading my question about one of his hits – until I remembered, post-interview, that it had been sung by another crooner.

And all that happened in just one week.

So what's a befuddled woman to do? Except laugh about it with a fellow mummy friend and put it all down to baby brain.

I was able to do this quite happily until those pesky Australian researchers announced last month that baby brain is a myth.

An Australian National University team claimed, after conducting a 20-year study, that it had debunked the myth that a woman's ability to think was impaired by pregnancy and childbirth.

Women, in a random sample of 7,500 Australians, were given memory and cognitive speed tests three times over eight years.

The researchers claimed that they could find no difference in these abilities both before and after the women's pregnancy.

In addition, lead researcher Helen Christensen told AFP that there was no difference between the non-mothers and mothers' memories.

Being warned by babycraft books of the possibility of short-term memory problems might have led some pregnant women to expect it, thus making it self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Our results challenge the view that mothers are anything other than the intellectual peers of their contemporaries," Ms Christensen said.

Feminists may rejoice at these findings, as proof that baby-brain syndrome is nothing but a phallocentric invention by chauvinistic husbands desperate to keep their post-partum wives at home.

And I'm inclined to agree with them.

Only, now, I'm left without an excuse for being ditzy.

Still, I have a sneaky suspicion that baby brain is a built-in defence mechanism for new mothers.

After all, the responsibility of caring for a demanding, helpless baby can take its toll on any well-balanced woman.

That is why, these days, when my four-year-old son Julian acts up, I opt for self-induced forgetfulness over frustration.

As Julian prances around doing various naughty (and monkey-like) things, I stare down at him and feign amnesia.

"Who is this little boy in our house?" I ask the Supportive Spouse, with mock surprise.

He replies that he doesn't know, and we shrug our shoulders and mumble our mutual amazement.

Gawping at his strange parents, Julian would exclaim: "I'm your son! I live here with you!"

Then, as he reaches for my hand, he adds: "You're so silly."

Maybe baby brain is nature's way of making mothers silly, so that they'll forgive their offspring anything.

No matter what any researcher might say.

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