Patent ID: 8535468

Claim:
A method of making a disposable bodily fluid handling composite pad having a longitudinal direction, a transverse direction and a thickness direction being orthogonal one to another, and said pad comprising a first bodily fluid absorbing pad and a second bodily fluid absorbing pad, said first bodily fluid absorbing pad comprising a bodily fluid absorbing layer and a bodily fluid impervious layer attached permanently together in said thickness direction, at least one of opposite ends of the first bodily fluid absorbing pad as viewed in said longitudinal direction is formed so as to be thinner than an intermediate region defined between said opposite ends, and said second bodily fluid absorbing pad being seperably attached to said bodily fluid impervious layer of said first bodily fluid absorbing pad, wherein said method comprises the steps of: feeding a continuous web, which includes said bodily fluid absorbing layer and said bodily fluid impervious layer permanently attached to each other, in a machine direction, through paired compression rolls rotating in said machine direction; compressing regions of said continuous web, which correspond respectively to said at least one of said opposite ends, by said paired compression rolls to reduce the thickness of said regions of the continuous web to obtain a worked web along which thickness-reduced regions corresponding to said opposite ends are arranged at predetermined intervals in said machine direction; non-adhesively attaching a bodily fluid absorbing web to (i) said bodily fluid impervious layer of the worked web while feeding said worked web or to (ii) a plurality of said first bodily fluid absorbing pads cut out from said worked web in said machine direction, to obtain a first composite web defining the first bodily fluid absorbing pad; permanently and directly attaching a bodily fluid impervious web to said bodily fluid absorbing web constituting said first composite web so that said bodily fluid absorbing web directly contacts the bodily fluid impervious web; coating said bodily fluid impervious web with pressure-sensitive adhesive; covering said pressure-sensitive adhesive with a web to obtain a second composite web defining the second bodily fluid absorbing pad, wherein the bodily fluid impervious web of the second composite web is separably attachable to a garment of a wearer by said pressure-sensitive adhesive when the web is removed; and cutting said second composite web to obtain said composite pad.