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A sanitary napkin, sanitary towel, sanitary pad, menstrual pad, maxi pad, or pad is an absorbent item worn by a woman while she is menstruating, while she is recovering from vaginal surgery, for lochia (post birth bleeding), after an abortion, or in any other situation where it is necessary to absorb a flow of blood from the vagina. These pads are not to be confused with generally higher absorbency incontinence pads, which are worn by men or women who have urinary incontinence problems or experience stress incontinence. Menstrual pads may be used by some people for this purpose. ==History== Through the ages women have used different forms of menstrual protection.〔(What did American and European women use for menstruation in the past? at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health )〕〔(Knitted Norwegian Pads at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health )〕 Menstrual pads have been mentioned as early as the 10th century, in the Suda, where Hypatia, who lived in the 4th century AD, was said to have thrown one of her used menstrual rags at an admirer in an attempt to discourage him. Women often used strips of folded old cloth (rags) to catch their menstrual flow, which is why the term "on the rag" is used to refer to menstruation. Disposable menstrual pads grew from nurses in France who created a pad to help stop wounded soldiers from bleeding, but appear to have been first commercially available from around 1888 with the Southball's pad.〔(Ads for early Southball's disposable menstrual pads in the U.K. at MUM )〕 The first commercially available American disposable napkins were Lister's Towels created by Johnson & Johnson in 1888. Disposable pads had their start with nurses using their wood pulp bandages to catch their menstrual flow, creating a pad that was made from easily obtainable materials and inexpensive enough to throw away after use.〔(Ads for Hartmann's menstrual pad (1880s) at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health )〕 Kotex's first advertisement for products made with this wood pulp (Cellucotton) appeared in 1888.〔(Inside the Museum of Menstruation 6 )〕 Several of the first disposable pad manufacturers were also manufacturers of bandages, which could give an indication of what these products were like. Until disposable sanitary pads were created, cloth or reusable pads were widely used to collect menstrual blood. Women often used a variety of home-made menstrual pads which they crafted from various fabrics, or other absorbent materials, to collect menstrual blood.〔〔(What European and American women in the past wore when menstruating, at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health )〕 Even after disposable pads were commercially available, for several years they were too expensive for many women to afford.〔(dry-weave sanitary napkin,sanitary napkin with wings,disposable sanitary napkin )〕 When they could be afforded, women were allowed to place money in a box so that they would not have to speak to the clerk and take a box of Kotex pads from the counter themselves.〔 It took several years for disposable menstrual pads to become commonplace. However, they are now used nearly exclusively in most of the industrialized world.〔 The first of the disposable pads were generally in the form of a cotton wool or similar fibrous rectangle covered with an absorbent liner. The liner ends were extended front and back so as to fit through loops in a special girdle or belt worn beneath undergarments. This design was notorious for slipping either forward or back of the intended position. Later an adhesive strip was placed on the bottom of the pad for attachment to the saddle of the panties, and this became a favoured method with women. The belted sanitary napkin quickly disappeared during the early 1980s. The ergonomic design and materials used to make pads also changed through the 1980s to today. With earlier materials not being as absorbent and effective, and early pads being up to two centimetres thick, leaks were a major problem. Some variations introduced were quilting of the lining, adding "wings" and reducing the thickness of the pad by utilising products such as sphagnum and polyacrylate superabsorbent gels derived from petroleum. The materials used to manufacture most pads are derived from the petroleum industry and forestry. The absorbent core, made from chlorine bleached wood pulp, could be reduced to make slimmer products with the addition of polyacrylate gels which sucks up the liquid quickly and holds it in a suspension under pressure. The remaining materials are mostly derived from the petroleum industry, the cover stock used is polypropylene non woven, with the leakproof barrier made from polyethylene film. Cloth menstrual pads made a comeback around the 1970s,〔(From the Collection of MUM: Washable Menstrual Pads and Underpants )〕 with their popularity increasing in the late 80s and early 90s. Reasons women choose to switch to cloth menstrual pads include comfort, savings over time, environmental impact and health reasons. There are many styles of cloth menstrual pads available today. Popular styles of cloth menstrual pads include all-in-one, or AIO pads, in which the absorbent layer is sewn inside the pad, 'inserts on top' style pads, which have absorbent layers that can be secured on top of the pad as needed, envelope or pocket style pads, which have absorbent layers that can be inserted inside the pad as needed, and a foldable style, in which the pad folds around the absorbent layers. Cloth menstrual pads can have waterproof lining, which provides more leak protection but may also be less breathable. In underdeveloped countries, reusable or makeshift pads are still used to collect menstrual blood.〔(Letters: Period pain in Zimbabwe – Salon )〕 Rags, soil, and mud are also reportedly used for collecting menstrual flow. In order to meet the need for achieving an inexpensive solution to tackle unsanitary and unhygienic practices in countries like India, Arunachalam Muruganantham from rural Coimbatore in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India developed and patented a machine which could manufacture low-cost sanitary pads for less than a third of the cost. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sanitary napkin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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