The CEO and founder of a pregnancy pillow company told the BBC that Meta removed an ad for the word "pregnancy."
In Jan. 2025, Instagram (which is owned by Meta) notified BellaMoon founder Irene Breen that it was removing her company's ads, and she told the BBC she had to scrub the word "pregnancy" from the product name and URLs. Meta apparently told her on the call that the word was the problem.
After 10 months of talks with Meta, it lifted the restrictions.
Meta told the BBC that while ads for wellness, sexual health, and reproductive products can run on its sites, there are restrictions "to avoid users across countries and cultures having a negative experience," the BBC reported.
"The suggestion that the word 'pregnancy' cannot be used on our platforms is incorrect. To be clear, people can freely use the word 'pregnancy' in posts, and share and discuss pregnancy-related content," a Meta spokesperson told the BBC.
Businesses focused on women's health and sexuality have long complained that Meta rejects their ads. In 2023, the sexual wellness brand Unbound experimented after Meta rejected its ads for sex toys. It made ads more male-centric, and Meta allowed them. That same year, the gynecological health platform Daye said Meta rejected its ads for being "adult content." In 2026, LGBTQ and plus-sized businesses told Mashable that Meta removed their accounts even when they didn't violate its guidelines, and it was difficult to get in touch with the company to appeal.
Meta also recently came under fire by feminist groups who claimed that its platforms censored posts about the Cornell rape case. And, in Oct., Meta made headlines for suspending the Instagram account for the No Kings Coalition on the day of a No Kings protest. Meta apologized and stated that an AI tool interpreted activity about the protests as automated bot traffic.