Mums and mums-to-be... that excuse you use... you're making it all up.

Baby brain DOES NOT exist.

I recently went to Fiji for a baby moon. I remember packing my favourite long black dress. I folded it, and placed it in my luggage.

What I do not remember is (for some unknown reason) taking it out of the suitcase, unfolding it, and hanging it neatly in my cupboard at home before closing my suitcase and heading off. I only realised I was sans my favourite dress when I arrived at the hotel.

Damn, I thought, my first case of baby brain.

But no. Apparently, baby brain is not to blame. It’s not real. In fact, us women just make it all up.

Smart people, a.k.a. scientists, have put pregnant women and mums with kids to the test. Mental tests to be exact. And when compared to women without kids…they found we perform just as well as them.

So then why do so many women swear by it? (And how do they make sense of my black dress drama?)

The team at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City says that there's a stereotype that your brain will wither away with the pregnancy announcement. But instead of listening to it, ignore it. Because it's baloney.

They got 21 mums-to-be to take the tests, once before the birth and then a couple of months after the birth (with a few sleepless newborn nights thrown in for fun). They also got another set of 21 women, not pregnant, with no kids, to do the 3 hour mental tests.

And there was no difference. Instead, mums-to-be and mums were harder on themselves. Pregnant women and mums said they thought they'd done terribly.

Michael Larson, Psychology professor, noted that, "this feeling of, 'I really am doing badly right now' exists despite the objective evidence that they aren't."

So despite us constantly being told that baby brain is real...there was a study just a few months ago confirming its existent (yes, us mums-to-be and mums remember THAT), in reality, we are just far too hard on ourselves.

Which is completely true. We are far too hard on ourselves. So maybe it wasn't my fault, or my unborn child's that I left my black dress behind.

Do you believe in baby brain?

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