An explicitly r(12) dependent wavefunction for the ground state of helium is Fourier transformed and the resulting momentum-space wavefunction is used to study the momentum properties. In particular, results are obtained for the momentum density, moments of momentum density and Compton profile. It is demonstrated that the use of our simple minded wavefunction provides a straightforward analytic method to estimate the effect of electron-electron correlation on the momentum properties of helium atom and gives results which are in good agreement with those obtained by more detailed calculations. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.