ADJUSTABLE PROTECTIVE MATERNITY BELT
An adjustable protective maternity belt includes a protective belt, a waist protection board and at least one adjustment belt. The protective belt has two fastening straps. The adjustment belts are connected with the fastening straps. The waist protection board is connected with the fastening strap of the protective belt and also with the adjustment belts which are respectively positioned on the lower and upper belly of the pregnant woman.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an adjustable protective maternity belt, and more particularly to a maternity belt, which can provide waist protection and decreased back soreness for a pregnant woman. Moreover, the maternity belt can minimize the risk of humpback of the pregnant woman.
2. Description of the Related Art
During pregnancy, a pregnant woman often suffers waist soreness and backache. It is caused by the change of the body attitude of the pregnant woman. At the middle stage or later stage of pregnancy, a pregnant woman often feels soreness of the waist, pain over the back due to deformation of the lumbar, humpback and low fetal positioning, which may also lead to premature birth.
A conventional maternity belt is able to relieve the belly of a pregnant woman from gravity load so as to prevent the pregnant woman's body from unnaturally tilting backward. This can minimize the waist soreness and backache of the pregnant woman. In order to relieve the symptom of waist soreness and avoid abnormal fetal position and uterine prolapse, a doctor will generally suggest that a pregnant woman starts to use a maternity belt at about middle stage of pregnancy according to personal requirements.
The conventional maternity belt can simply provide belly holding/supporting effect for a pregnant woman with limited waist support design. Therefore, a pregnant woman still needs to use her waist and back as forces of support for her belly. As a result, the load on the waist of the pregnant woman is increased. Moreover, the conventional maternity belt has a fixed length. However, it is known that the belly of a pregnant woman will become bigger from early pregnancy to late pregnancy stage. The length of the maternity belt fastening straps may be either too long or too short for a pregnant woman to wear. Also, the conventional maternity belt does not have enough back support to alleviate the back pain that frequently happened during the post-partum period as a result of bad posture during the neonatal care. Therefore, the pregnant woman cannot conveniently wear the conventional maternity belt or it may even be impossible to wear.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIt is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide an adjustable protective maternity belt. The maternity belt is able to hold and support the belly of a pregnant women. The position and tightness of the adjustment belts can be adjusted according to the change in the size of the pregnant women's belly. For pregnant woman in their second or third trimester or even during the post-partum stage, the waist protection board is applied to the back of the pregnant woman and connected with the adjustment belts and protective belt respectively. The adjustment belts and the protective belt were then positioned on the upper and lower belly of the pregnant woman. Accordingly, the holding and support force of the protective belt is enhanced to share the load on the lumbar area of the pregnant woman. Therefore, the pregnant woman can wear the maternity belt more comfortably to relieve the waist soreness and achieve a waist and back protection effect. Moreover, the maternity belt can also minimize the risk of humpback for pregnant woman.
To achieve the above mentioned functions, the adjustable protective maternity belt of the present invention includes a protective belt, a waist protection board and at least one adjustment belt. The protective belt has a wider protective cover body and two narrower fastening straps integrally extending from two sides of the protective cover body. Fastener members are disposed on inner faces of free ends of the fastening straps. The wider protective cover body of the protective belt serves to hold and support the lower belly of a pregnant woman. The adjustment belts are connected with the fastening straps and wound over two sides of the waist and around the back of the pregnant woman and attached to the opposite side of the protective belt. The maternity belt can be applied to a second or third trimester pregnant woman to provide a belly holding/supporting effect. The waist protection board is also applicable during the latter pregnancy stage or the postpartum period as needed. The waist protection board includes a substrate enclosed in a fabric layer, multiple supporting members are disposed on the substrate and the connection tapes are disposed on the outer face of the substrate as well. The supporting members serve to support the lower back of the pregnant woman. The fastening straps of the protective belt are wound over two sides of the waist of the pregnant woman to connect with the connection tapes of the waist protection board. In this case, the protective cover body and the waist protection board are respectively positioned on the belly and the back of the pregnant woman. The adjustment belts are connected with the connection tapes of the waist protection board and wound over two sides of the waist of the pregnant woman to the upper belly of the pregnant woman and connected with each other. Under such circumstance, the belly holding/supporting force of the protective belt is enhanced and the pregnant woman can more comfortably wear the maternity belt to relieve the waist and back soreness.
The present invention can be best understood through the following description and accompanying drawings, wherein:
Please refer to
The protective belt 2 has a wider protective cover body 20 and two narrower fastening straps 21, 22 integrally extending from two sides of the protective cover body 20. The protective cover body 20 and the fastening straps 21, 22 can be integrally made from one piece of cloth by tailoring. Fastener members are disposed on inner surfaces of free ends of the fastening straps 21, 22. The fastener members can be a hook, loop fasteners, snap fasteners or buttons. In this embodiment, the fastener members are hook tapes 23. (One of the hook tapes 23 is not shown). By means of the fastener members, the protective belt 2 can be connected to the waist protection board 4. Each adjustment belt 3 is an elongated belt body. Fastener members are disposed on both inner and outer faces of two ends of the adjustment belt 3. The fastener members can be a hook, loop fasteners, snap fasteners or buttons. In this embodiment, the fastener members disposed on the inner faces are hook tapes 31, 300 and the fastener members disposed on the outer faces are loop tapes 30, 310. By means of the fastener members, the adjustment belts 3 can be connected to the waist protection board 4 or the fastening straps 21, 22 of the protective belt 2.
The waist protection board 4 includes a substrate 40 enclosed in a fabric layer, several fabric pockets 400 disposed on outer face of the substrate 40 for receiving support members therein, and upper and lower connection tapes 43, 44 fixedly disposed on the outer face of the substrate 40. The upper and lower connection tapes 43, 44 have fastener members, which can be a hook, loop fasteners, snap fasteners or buttons. In this embodiment, the fastener members are loop tapes 42. The adjustment belts 3 are connected to the upper connection tapes 43, while the fastening straps 21, 22 of the protective belt 2 are connected to the lower connection tapes 44. The above components can be assembled in different stages according to the conditions of a pregnant woman for the pregnant woman to wear.
Please refer to
As the pregnancy progress, the belly of the pregnant woman 5 becomes bigger (as shown in
Referring to
In case of length insufficiency of the fastening straps 21, 22 of the protective belt 2 and adjustment belt 3, the connection tapes 43, 44 can be elongated to form elongated connection straps 7 (as shown in
The above embodiments are only used to illustrate the present invention, not intended to limit the scope thereof. Many modifications of the above embodiments can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.
Claims
1. An adjustable protective maternity belt comprising:
- a protective belt having a wider protective cover body and two narrower fastening straps integrally extending from two sides of the protective cover body, the protective cover body serving to hold and support lower belly of a pregnant woman;
- a waist protection board including a substrate enclosed in a fabric layer, multiple fabric pockets disposed on outer face of the substrate for receiving support members therein, and connection tapes disposed on the outer face of the substrate, the connection tapes having fastener members disposed on surfaces of the connection tapes, the fastening straps of the protective belt being wound over two sides of the waist of the pregnant woman to connect with the fastener members of the connection tapes of the waist protection board; and
- at least one adjustment belt including an elongated belt body and fastener members disposed at two ends of the elongated belt body for connecting with the connection tapes of the waist protection board, the adjustment belts being wound over two sides of the waist of the pregnant woman to upper belly of the pregnant woman and connected with each other.
2. The adjustable protective maternity belt as claimed in claim 1, wherein the fastener members are hook and loop fasteners.
3. The adjustable protective maternity belt as claimed in claim 1, wherein the substrate of the waist protection board is a soft pad.
4. The adjustable protective maternity belt as claimed in claim 1, wherein the fastener members of the connection tapes are hook and loop fasteners.
5. The adjustable protective maternity belt as claimed in claim 1, wherein the fabric pockets of the waist protection board are envelopes inserted with a gas or a liquid-filled container.
6. The adjustable protective maternity belt as claimed in claim 1, wherein the support members are stands adjustable in hardness.
7. An adjustable protective maternity belt comprising:
- a protective belt having a wider protective cover body and two narrower fastening straps integrally extending from two sides of the protective cover body, the protective cover body serving to hold and support lower belly of a pregnant woman, fastener members being disposed on inner faces of the fastening straps; and
- at least one adjustment belt including an elongated belt body and fastener members disposed at two ends of the elongated belt body for connection with the fastening straps of the protective belt, the adjustment belts being wound over two sides of the waist of the pregnant woman, continued around the back of the pregnant woman and attached to the opposite side of the protection belt.
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 21, 2011
Publication Date: Mar 21, 2013
Inventor: William Chen (Kaohsiung City)
Application Number: 13/239,164
International Classification: A41C 1/08 (20060101);