U.S. Patent No.: 8,216,205 B2 

Inventor(s): Sachiyo Suzuki, Kagawa-ken, Japan; and Toshifumi Otsubo, Kagawa-ken, Japan.

Company: Uni-Charm Corporation, Ehime, Japan.

Issued: 7/10/12

Description:
A disposable diaper having a longitudinal direction and a transverse direction which are orthogonal to each other, said diaper comprising: an absorbent chassis including: opposite inner and outer surfaces, the inner surface being adapted to directly contact a wearer in use when the diaper is worn on the wearer, a front waist covering region, a rear waist covering region, a crotch covering region extending in the longitudinal direction between said front and rear waist covering regions, and a body fluid absorbent region which has a pair of transversely opposite side margins opposed to each other in said transverse direction, is located between transversely opposite side edges of said chassis, and extends at least in said crotch covering region; and a pair of body fluid barriers which are provided along and in vicinities of said side margins, respectively, so as to extend in said longitudinal direction, for preventing body fluid, discharged in use between said barriers, from leaking in the transverse direction beyond the barriers and out of the diaper; wherein each of said body fluid barriers comprises a plurality of strips formed from a flexible sheet material and arranged side by side in said longitudinal direction; each of said strips has a length in the transverse direction greater than in the longitudinal direction, is hydrophobic and includes a fixed portion joined to the inner surface of said chassis at a location which is positioned, in the transverse direction, outside the absorbent region and between the respective side margin of the absorbent region and a respective one of the side edges of said chassis, and first and second flexible portions which are formed by the remainder of the strip, are directly contactable with the wearer in use, and are located on opposite sides of said fixed portion; wherein the first flexible portion is suspended over the body fluid absorbent region in a cantilever configuration and arranged for direct contact with the wearer in use.