Pant-type absorbent articles having a main body to cover the crotch region of the wearer and a separate elastic belt defining the waist opening and leg opening are known in the art, such as described in PCT Publication WO 2006/17718A. Such pant-type wearable articles may be referred to as belt-type pants. Belt-type pants are advantageous in that they have good breathability around the elastic belt, and in that they may be manufactured economically.
Compared to taped-type absorbent articles, pant-type absorbent articles are recently increasing popularity due to the convenience of applying a pant-type absorbent article on a child. When applying a taped-type article with comfortable fit on a child, the care-giver needs to pay close attention to the positioning of the article relative to the child's body and the stretching level applied in taping the ears to its landing zone. In contrast, pant-type articles have predefined waist opening and leg openings and thus allows the care-giver to apply the article on the child's body by simply inserting the child's legs in the leg opening and pulling the article up over the waist.
Small size pants are intended for use on infants having a body weight of less than 8 kg. Infants of this body size are typically less than 10 months old and, on average, sleep about 13-18 hours a day. For these infants, absorbent articles may be changed while they are sleeping, thus it is desirable that the small size pant may be applied onto infants with ease so that their sleep is not disturbed. Furthermore, the proportion of the lower torso and thighs of infants are different compared to older babies, and the legs of infants are usually in a curved position. Hence, simply downsizing larger sized pants does not provide a desirable small size pant for an infant.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for providing a small size pant which can be applied with ease, has good fit on the wearer, and which can be made in a cost effective manner.
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