Yusuke Kawakami, Kagawa, Japan; and Kazuya Fujimoto, Kagawa, Japan.
Assigned to Unicharm Corporation, Ehime, Japan.

Filed: 5/15/13
Issued: 9/4/18

A wearing article having a longitudinal direction parallel to a longitudinal center line, a transverse direction parallel to a transverse center line, a skin-facing side and a non-skin-facing side opposite to the skin-facing side, and including: a chassis having: a first waist region defined by one of front and rear waist regions and being elastically contractible in the transverse direction, a second waist region defined by another of the front and rear waist regions, the first and second waist regions being joined together along transverse seams and a crotch region lying between the front and rear waist regions; and an absorbent structure disposed on the skin-facing side of the chassis and extending in the longitudinal direction across the crotch region into at least the first waist region and recesses disposed on the absorbent structure, a plurality of waist-elastic members in the first waist region which extend in the transverse direction, wherein: the absorbent structure includes a first region defined in the first waist region and the recesses at least partially lying in the first region and extending in the longitudinal direction; and a shape retention panel is disposed on the non-skin-facing side of the first waist region so that the shape retention panel indirectly or directly overlap the first region and the recesses as viewed in a thickness direction of the article; the shape retention panel has first and second end edges extending in the transverse direction and opposed side edges extending in the longitudinal direction; the second end edge of the shape retention panel is disposed within the front waist region near a front end of the crotch region; the opposed side edges of the shape retention panel are transversely disposed outward from respective longitudinal side edges of the first region and the first end edge of the shape retention panel is disposed longitudinally outward of the first region; a part of an inner end edge of the first waist region disposed on the outside of the absorbent structure as viewed in the transverse direction has a concave shape toward the crotch region; the second end edge of the shape retention panel is disposed on the outside of the inner end edge of the first waist region as viewed in the longitudinal direction; the shape retention panel is located on the non-skin-facing surface of the plurality of waist-elastic members; the recesses include a central recess extending along the longitudinal center line and lateral recesses lying outside of the central recess in the transverse direction; a dimension in the longitudinal direction of the central recess is larger than that of the lateral recesses and at least part of the central recess lies in the first region; a dimension in the transverse direction of the central recess and the lateral recesses is in a range of 5 to 20 mm and a dimension in the longitudinal direction of the central recess is in a range of 200 to 400 mm and a dimension in the longitudinal direction of the lateral recess is in a range of 50 to 400 mm; and a part of an inner end edge of the second waist region disposed on the outside of the absorbent structure as viewed in the transverse direction extends linearly downward from a lower end of the seams toward the absorbent structure.