Patent ID: 8182454

Claim:
A breast milk absorbent pad having a longitudinal direction and a transverse direction and comprising: a pad-chassis having a first surface facing a wearer's skin and a second surface facing away from the wearer's skin; said pad-chassis being composed of a body fluid absorbent layer inclusive of a body fluid absorbent assembly and a body fluid leak-barrier sheet defining said second surface, and a pair of elastically stretchable/contractible members extending along transversely opposite sides of said pad-chassis in a longitudinal direction in order to deform said first surface in a concave shape; said pad-chassis including side flaps extending outward from transversely opposite edges of said body fluid absorbent assembly, each of said side flaps comprising a first portion facing said skin and a second portion facing away from said skin and put flat together with said first portion; said elastically stretchable/contractible members being stretched in said longitudinal direction and attached in such a stretched state to the transversely opposite outer edges of each of said second portions, exclusively with respect to the first portions; and said body fluid absorbent assembly having longitudinally opposed upper and lower sides and further including a high stiffness region located exclusively so as to contact and extend inward from a peripheral edge of the body fluid absorbent assembly at least one of the upper and lower sides without extending longitudinally across a major portion of the distance between said upper and lower sides of the body fluid absorbent assembly, and a value of stiffness in said high stiffness region being higher than that in a remaining region of said body fluid absorbent assembly, wherein said high stiffness region comprises a plurality of compressed grooves and ridges defined between each pair of adjacent ones of said compressed grooves both extending in the longitudinal direction so as to define together a surface that is repetitively patterned in an indented manner in the transverse direction.