Patent ID: 8784593

Claim:
A method of manufacturing an absorbent article, the absorbent article including: a main absorbent body having an absorbent body configured to absorb liquid and to be put against a crotch of a wearer when worn, a back-side band that intersects the main absorbent body at one longitudinal end portion of the main absorbent body, and that is configured to be positioned on a back side of the wearer when worn, and an abdominal-side band that intersects the main absorbent body at another longitudinal end portion of the main absorbent body, and that is configured to be positioned on an abdominal side of the wearer when worn, wherein each of the back-side band and the abdominal-side band includes two protruding portions that protrude from both ends of the main absorbent body in a transverse direction intersecting the longitudinal direction of the main absorbent body, the method comprising: joining, during transportation of a continuous back-side band base material and a continuous abdominal-side band base material in a transport direction, one longitudinal end portion of a main absorbent body base material to the back-side band base material and another longitudinal end portion of the absorbent body base material to the abdominal-side band base material, so that the longitudinal direction of the main absorbent body base material intersects the transport direction; folding the main absorbent body base material and overlapping the back-side band base material with the abdominal-side band base material; temporarily joining the overlapped back-side band base material and abdominal-side band base material only at, of first and second portions where the two protruding portions are to be formed, the first portion positioned downstream of the second portion in the transport direction; cutting the temporarily joined back-side band base material and abdominal-side band base material and forming a back-side band base material piece and an abdominal-side band base material piece; and transporting the back-side band base material piece, the abdominal-side band base material piece and the main absorbent body base material in the transport direction while the back-side band base material piece and the abdominal-side band base material piece are in a temporarily joined state only at the first portion.