|Publication number||US7326192 B2|
|Application number||US 10/944,408|
|Publication date||5 Feb 2008|
|Filing date||20 Sep 2004|
|Priority date||30 Jul 2004|
|Also published as||CN1993093A, CN100544692C, CN101584626A, CN101584626B, DE602005023622D1, EP1774937A1, EP1774937A4, EP1774937B1, US7749210, US20060025744, US20080077110, WO2006011603A1|
|Publication number||10944408, 944408, US 7326192 B2, US 7326192B2, US-B2-7326192, US7326192 B2, US7326192B2|
|Inventors||Yoshitaka Mishima, Hironao Minato, Nariaki Shimoe|
|Original Assignee||Uni-Charm Corporation|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (7), Referenced by (3), Classifications (10), Legal Events (3)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
The present application is based on, and claims priority from, Japanese Application Number 2004-224724, filed Jul. 30, 2004, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
The present invention relates to disposable diapers having a means adapted for receiving feces.
There has already been proposed disposable diapers having a pocket as a means adapted for receiving feces, comprising a first sheet facing a wearer's skin and a second sheet facing the wearer's garment wherein, in a crotch region of the diaper, the first sheet is formed with a through-hole communicating with the feces receiving pocket defined between the first and second sheets so that the through-hole may be aligned with anus of the wearer when the diaper is put on the wearer's body.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,990,147 (Citation 1) discloses a disposable diaper comprising a liquid-impervious backsheet, a liquid-pervious liner and a bodily waste absorbent core interposed between the backsheet and the liner. The liner is formed with a through-hole adapted to guide feces therethrough toward the core and thereby to protect the wearer's skin from being contaminated with feces. The liner is formed at least partially by an elastic panel serving to keep a periphery of the through-hole in close contact with an area surrounding the anus. In this diaper, a stock material for the elastic panel may be selected from the group consisting of a nonwoven fabric of a polyurethane elastic threads and a knitted fabric of inelastic threads.
WO 03/009795 A1 (Citation 2) discloses a disposable diaper as illustrated in
The liner of the diaper disclosed in Citation 1 as well as the topsheet of the diaper disclosed in Citation 2 may be formed from the elastic sheet. One example of such elastic sheet is a nonwoven fabric of elastic threads such as polyurethane elastic threads, which falls, however, into disfavor with wearer's mothers due to uncomfortable rubber-like touch peculiar to this nonwoven fabric. The other example of such elastic sheet is knitted fabric of inelastic threads, which is, however, too costly to be used for the disposable diaper. For the diaper disclosed in Citation 2, the elastic threads may be attached to the nonwoven fabric of inelastic threads to ensure that this nonwoven fabric is partially elasticized. The topsheet formed from a nonwoven fabric made of inelastic threads and partially elasticized in this manner certainly solves the problem that the wearer might experience uncomfortable rubber-like touch so far as the diaper is in the state as shown in
The present invention is directed to a disposable diaper comprising a chassis having a crotch region, a front waist region extending forward from the crotch region and a rear waist region extending rearward from the crotch region, and a liquid-absorbent panel interposed between a first sheet defining an inner surface of the chassis and facing a wearer's skin and a second sheet defining an outer surface of the chassis and facing the wearer clothes. The first sheet being spaced, in a transversely middle zone of the crotch region, from the second sheet as well as from the body fluid absorbent panel in a thickness direction of the first sheet to define a pocket adapted to receive feces, the first sheet being formed along a center line bisecting a width of the crotch region with a through-hole extending in a longitudinal direction toward the front waist region and the rear waist region, respectively, in communication with the pocket, the through-hole being provided along its transversely opposite side edges extending in parallel to each other on both sides of the center line with elastic members attached in stretched states to the first sheet. The elastic members respectively comprise intermediate sections extending in the longitudinal direction along the transversely opposite side edges of the through-hole and sections extending from the intermediate sections so as to be gradually spaced away from the center line.
The diaper according to the invention further comprises the first sheet in the crotch region being formed between the transversely opposite side edges of the diaper extending in the longitudinal direction and the transversely opposite side edges of the through-hole with a means adapted for locally enhancing a flexural stiffness of the first sheet in the transverse direction of the diaper so as to restrict a deformation of the first sheet in the transverse direction.
According to one preferred embodiment of the invention, the restricting means are formed intermittently in the longitudinal direction.
According to another preferred embodiment of the invention, the restricting means are formed from bonding sheet strips prepared separately of the first sheet to the first sheet.
According to still another preferred embodiment of the invention, the restricting means are formed by coating the first sheet with hot melt adhesive.
According to still another preferred embodiment of the invention, the first sheet comprises a nonwoven fabric of thermoplastic synthetic fibers and the restricting means comprise film-like spots formed by locally melting and solidifying the nonwoven fabric.
According to further another preferred embodiment of the invention, the restricting means comprise corrugations of the first sheet regularly undulating in the longitudinal direction.
The first sheet has a flexural stiffness in the transverse direction of the diaper locally enhanced to define means adapted to restrain a deformation of the first sheet in the transverse direction of the diaper. This unique arrangement is effective to prevent the first sheet in the crotch region from significantly shifting in the transverse direction of the diaper and thereby to prevent the width between the side edges from being significantly varied even under elastic contraction of the elastic members extending in parallel to the center line along the side edges of the opening formed in the crotch region of the first sheet and then obliquely extending toward the front and rear waist regions so as to draw apart gradually from the center line.
The means adapted to restrain a significant deformation of the first sheet include bonding of sheet strips prepared separately of the first sheet to the first sheet intermittently in the longitudinal direction, forming the first sheet with a plurality of hot melt adhesive coated areas intermittently in the longitudinal direction of the diaper wherein each of these areas extends in the transverse direction of the diaper, forming film-like spots prepared by melting and solidifying the nonwoven fabric, and forming the first sheet with a plurality of gathers undulating in the longitudinal direction of the diaper.
Details of a disposable diaper according to the present invention will be more fully understood from the description given hereunder with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The chassis 2 is contoured by the transversely opposite side edges 3 extending in the longitudinal direction Y of the diaper 1 and front and rear ends 16, 17 extending in the transverse direction X corresponding to a width direction of the diaper 1. The chassis 2 has an inner sheet 22 to contact with a wearer's skin and an outer sheet 23 to contact with the wearer's garment. The inner sheet 22 is formed with an oblong through-hole 26 extending in the longitudinal direction Y on the center line C-C bisecting a width of the diaper 1 so that a bodily waste absorbent panel 24 interposed between the inner and outer sheets 22, 23 may be seen through this through-hole 26. A periphery of the through-hole 26 is defined by a pair of transversely opposite side edges 31 extending in the longitudinal direction Y generally in parallel to the center line C-C, a front edge 36 generally describing a V-shape and a rear edge 33 generally describing an inverted V-shape. Front and rear bands 28, 29 both extending in the transverse direction X are attached to a surface of the inner sheet 22 facing the wearer's skin along the front and rear ends 16, 17, respectively. The inner sheet 22 further includes elastic areas 40 comprising intermediate sub-areas 36 extending along the transversely opposite side edges 31 of the through-hole 26 generally in parallel to the center line C-C, front sub-areas 37 obliquely extending from the vicinity of the front edge 32 of the through-hole 26 toward the front band 28 so as to draw apart gradually from the center line C-C and rear sub-areas 38 obliquely extending from the vicinity of the rear edge 33 of the through-hole 26 toward the rear band 29 so as to draw apart gradually from the center line C-C.
Of the diaper 1 constructed as has been described above, the inner sheet 22 is formed from a liquid-pervious inelastic nonwoven fabric, a woven fabric, a plastic film or the like. The outer sheet 23 is formed from a liquid-impervious, more preferably, liquid-impervious but breathable woven fabric, a nonwoven fabric, a plastic film or the like. The elastic bands 48 may be of natural or synthetic rubber and have widths in a range of 2 to 20 mm. The front and rear bands 28, 29 are optionally used to prevent the front and rear waist regions 7, 8 from being contracted in the transverse direction under the effect of the stretched elastic bands 48. These front and rear bands 28, 29 may be formed from a nonwoven fabric having a basis weight in a range of 30 to 400 g/m2, a flexible and elastic foamed plastic sheet or the like. The through-hole 26 of the inner sheet 22 has a preferable dimensions, depending on the size of the diaper, to have the widths W ranging from 10 to 70 mm and a length sufficient to cover the anus and the urethral of the wearer.
The present invention allows the disposable diaper having the pocket for receiving feces to be improved so that the width of the through-opening communicating with the pocket can be substantially maintained constant even when the elastic members attached to the inner sheet of the diaper in stretched states are left to contract.
|Cited Patent||Filing date||Publication date||Applicant||Title|
|US4990147||2 Sep 1988||5 Feb 1991||The Procter & Gamble Company||Absorbent article with elastic liner for waste material isolation|
|JPH03218751A||Title not available|
|JPH04150853A||Title not available|
|JPH04322646A||Title not available|
|WO1999008640A1||29 Jul 1998||25 Feb 1999||Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc.||Absorbent article having an opening for feces in the topsheet|
|WO1999016398A1||21 Sep 1998||8 Apr 1999||Sca Hygiene Products Ab||Disposable absorbent article with high collection capacity|
|WO2003009795A1||25 Jul 2002||6 Feb 2003||The Procter & Gamble Company||Absorbent articles with elasticated topsheets|
|Citing Patent||Filing date||Publication date||Applicant||Title|
|US7749210 *||21 Nov 2007||6 Jul 2010||Uni-Charm Corporation||Disposable diaper|
|US20080058752 *||5 Sep 2007||6 Mar 2008||Maja Wciorka||Absorbent articles with elasticated topsheet with reduced leakage|
|US20080077110 *||21 Nov 2007||27 Mar 2008||Uni-Charm Corporation||Disposable diaper|
|U.S. Classification||604/385.19, 604/385.26, 604/385.27, 604/385.28, 604/385.24|
|Cooperative Classification||A61F13/495, A61F13/49473|
|European Classification||A61F13/495, A61F13/494C|
|6 Jan 2005||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: UNI-CHARM CORPORATION, JAPAN
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:MISHIMA, YOSHITAKA;MINATO, HIRONAO;SHIMOE, NARIAKI;REEL/FRAME:015557/0367;SIGNING DATES FROM 20041005 TO 20041006
|6 Jul 2011||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|22 Jul 2015||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 8