Presently, disposable absorbent garments, particularly diapers, use tapes that, although manufactured to be resealable, are subject to contamination by baby powder, oil or other substances which prevent them from sealing or resealing. Accordingly, manufacturers have grappled with the problem of providing a tape which is always resealable yet has strong enough adhesive properties not to be easily unfastenable by babies. Further, the fastening tapes used on the present disposable diapers can also have a detrimental effect upon fit. Because the tapes are made to be sealable on any portion of the outer cover, and there is no indication to mothers where the tape should be sealed, the tapes are very often sealed to the outer cover at the wrong position which has several detrimental effects. First, the diaper does not fit on the baby properly, for example, if too loose, the diaper falls down or droops at the waist, or if too tight, causes strain in the outer cover which can make the baby uncomfortable; moreover, stress develops across the lower abdominal portion, causing the portion of the diaper above the stress line to fold outwardly away from the body, which exposes wet absorbent material to the outer clothing and allows the clothing to also become wet by contact therewith, often even causing the clothing, e.g., undershirts and pajama tops to become tucked into the waist of the diaper. Secondly, the improper positioning of the tapes can cause the leg openings to gap, thus causing leakage. Third, in an attempt to reposition the tapes to correct the above problems, mothers have found that there is an increased potential to contaminate the tapes, thus causing the disposable diaper to be unusable; further, repositioning of the tapes frequently tears the waterproof outer cover if the adhesive is too aggressive.
Prior designs have also centered around using a disposable or nondisposable absorbent insert in a diaper cover or baby pant, which may have waist and/or leg elastics. U.S. Pat. No. 4,425,128 to Motomura discloses a waterproof baby pant having waist elastics and leg elastics with snaps for securing an absorbent thereto. However, this diaper cover does not provide a full-length closure system from waist to leg and is not designed to be an integral disposable absorbent garment that is form-fitting or self-adjusting.
As can be seen above, current integral disposable absorbent garments, especially diapers, do not employ fixed position, full-length fastening closures; moreover, reusable baby pants do not offer the convenience and other advantages of integral disposable diapers.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds