www.incontinentsupport.org

So having trialled many products both pull-ups and nappy style I have a question that has been bugging me for quite some time. Why do the waistbands of these products come up so high? is there a good reason behind this? I could understand it if there was absorbent padding in it but to me it just seems like excess material. This brings me on to the next question. Is it ok to fold the waistbands down on a product or is this somehow going to affect the performance of the product?
Hope everyone is keeping well and look forward to your response.

In my not so professional opinion, it could be having to make them fit every situation from those who bed ridden, different positions of sleep, to just over the years it has been discovered they needed to be that way. They make them generic to fit all those situations instead of making a different diaper to fit every situation. This probably keeps cost down for the company and to the consumer. For an example, I use the front, middle and some of the back portion(if I can't change and have two episodes) the most during the day. Then at night mostly the middle and back portion (till I get out of bed than my bladder says time to go again. This is just a guess about them.

I know when I was in my learning curve, I folded the top part down and thanks to my anatomy the padding would soak the top part of my jeans. Talk about learning the hard way. Now I wear a tank top t-shirt to hide the top of the diaper.

In a strange example, think of a person walking into a car dealership and saying I need a car which has a stationary seat that fits a 68 inch person. So instead of a car manufacturer makes movable car seat to fit tall and short people of the world. If that comparison even makes sense.

I think it's for support - to keep them from slipping down.

Manufacturers try to make the product fit as many body sizes and shapes as possible to save costs, the problem with this is that the more they try to cover the fewer people get a good fit we see this more profound when a product is sold in a size range that comes in S/M or L/XL so they only have to make two actual sizes it save on shipping and manufacturing but in reality the product tends to fit worse for more people. conversely, a product range that comes in youth/small/med/large/extra large tends to be better as you can narrow the fit for you.