Patent ID: 8268211

Claim:
A method of making a bodily fluid absorbent pad, said pad having a longitudinal direction, a transverse direction and a thickness direction being orthogonal one to another and elongated in said longitudinal direction, wherein said pad having a skin-contact surface and a skin-noncontact surface opposite to said skin-contact surface as viewed in said thickness direction, side edges extending in said longitudinal direction, first and second end regions opposite to each other in said longitudinal direction, and an intermediate region extending between said first and second end regions, a dimension of said pad in the transverse direction in the first and second end regions being larger than that in the intermediate region, and wherein said pad on said skin-contact surface includes compressed lines extending in said longitudinal direction inboard of the respective side edges, said method comprising the steps of: feeding a bodily fluid absorbent web in a machine direction; and compressing said bodily fluid absorbent web between a pair of compression rolls to form said compressed lines including first and second compressed segments in said first and second end regions, respectively, and third compressed segments in said intermediate region, wherein at least one of the compression rolls includes compressing units, which project from a peripheral surface of the compression roll, wherein the compressing units are arranged in at least two rows adjacent to each other and extending in the machine direction, wherein at least one of the compression rolls further includes projections projecting from the peripheral surface of said at least one of the compression rolls and extending in the machine direction along said rows of the compressing units, and wherein one row of the compressing units is offset from the other row of said compressing units in the machine direction so that said first and second compressed segments formed by one row of said compressing units are lateral to said third compressed segment formed by the other row of said compressing units in a cross direction substantially perpendicular to the machine direction, respectively.