RISK ASSESSMENT
IWBCA Women’s Thrombosis Burden + Prevention Index™
Pregnancy and childbirth push a woman’s body to the edge of survival. The same biology that prevents hemorrhage causes one in ten maternal deaths from preventable blood clots, and the risk of fatal thrombosis rises up to sixtyfold in the first six weeks after delivery. Cesarean birth, preeclampsia, infection, or even brief immobility can flip that switch. Yet most women are never told that the postpartum period is the most dangerous time in their lives for stroke, pulmonary embolism, or sudden death.
02
Hormonal Contraception + Replacement Therapies
Across all hormonal drugs—contraceptives, fertility agents, and HRT—the vascular risk is undeniable. Women on combined estrogen-progestin contraceptives face a three to fivefold higher risk of VTE than non-users, climbing to six to eightfold with high-risk formulations. In overweight users, the risk increases twelvefold, and in those with obesity it surges twenty-fourfold. Postmenopausal women on HRT face roughly double the risk of pulmonary embolism.
03
Aquired + Inherited
Thrombophilia
In women with inherited or acquired thrombophilias, the danger is catastrophic. When hormones enter the mix through birth control, fertility treatment, or hormone replacement therapy (HRT), clot risk can explode up to fifty times higher than baseline. These women are walking into minefields they don’t know exist; a single pill, patch, or injection can be enough to trigger a pulmonary embolism, stroke, or fatal cardiac event in someone who was otherwise healthy.
04
Surgery + Extended
Hospitalization
Surgery and hospitalization remain among the deadliest breeding grounds for thrombosis. Within days of immobility or tissue trauma, clot risk can spike 100-fold, with up to 60% of hospital-acquired deaths now traced to undiagnosed deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism. Even minor procedures can trigger fatal clots when combined with dehydration, anesthesia, or hormonal therapy—turning a routine hospital stay into the most dangerous part of recovery.
05
Malignancies + Autoimmune
Conditions
Women with breast, ovarian, uterine, or lung malignancies face extreme clotting risk as tumors trigger coagulation and chemotherapy destroys vascular integrity. The danger multiplies when hormones or steroids are added—clot risk can soar twentyfold, turning recovery into crisis. Autoimmune diseases like lupus, antiphospholipid syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis amplify the same process, making thrombotic death a leading but overlooked consequence of modern treatment.
ABOUT
History of the IWBCA
The International Women’s Blood Clot Advocates was founded after a preventable delay in diagnosis nearly cost one of its founders her life.
She had been a runner and lifelong athlete, with formal training in exercise science and kinesiology. When severe pain and loss of mobility developed in her leg and hip, the symptoms were repeatedly attributed to musculoskeletal strain. Treatment continued on that assumption for months. Physical therapy was prescribed and performed while extensive deep vein thromboses remained undiagnosed.
Eventually, the clots embolized to her heart and lungs.
The result was a catastrophic pulmonary embolism. She survived, but only after serious vascular symptoms had been repeatedly treated as routine and allowed to progress unchecked. Even more concerning, it was not the only major thrombotic event she would endure, nor the only one that came close to taking her life.
That experience became the basis of the IWBCA.
The organization was founded by a husband-and-wife team who had lived through the same medical crisis from different positions. She brought formal training in health sciences, prevention, health education, medical writing, ethics, and international health-systems design. He brought the experience of a spouse and caregiver who had watched a dangerous condition worsen while symptoms, referrals, and clinical decisions remained fragmented across the system.
Their shared conclusion was straightforward. Blood clots are common, dangerous, and too often recognized only after the opportunity for early intervention has narrowed.
The IWBCA was created to address that problem directly.
The organization's focus is deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, clotting disorders, and the diagnostic failures that allow treatable disease to become life-threatening disease. The organization works to improve public understanding of clot symptoms and risk factors, strengthen patient participation in medical decision-making, and help women and families recognize when a symptom pattern warrants urgent vascular evaluation.
The need is substantial. Thrombosis remains a major cause of death worldwide, yet public awareness remains limited and research investment has not kept pace with the burden of disease. Women also face periods of heightened thrombotic risk associated with pregnancy, the postpartum period, hormonal exposure, surgery, immobility, and inherited thrombophilia. These risks are well established, but they are not always recognized early enough to prevent serious harm.
The founders are now raising young daughters, which has given the work a generational urgency. The IWBCA was founded not only in response to what took place in the life of one woman. It was founded to ensure that all women who come after them are better informed, better prepared, and less likely to face the same dangerous delay in recognition.
The IWBCA exists so that the next generation of women is better equipped to recognize the warning signs of DVT and pulmonary embolism before those signs become a critical event. It exists so that women know the questions to ask, families know when to seek a second opinion, and clinicians have patients who are better informed about symptoms that are easy to dismiss and dangerous to miss.
The founders know the cost of delayed recognition because they lived it.
Their work is an effort to make that delay less common.
PREVENTION INITIATIVES
IWBCA Upstream Health Initiative™
Real progress in women’s health begins before the crisis. It begins upstream, where prevention should occur and too often does not. For decades, healthcare has been organized around intervention after disease is already established.
Women are pulled from the current only after the damage has begun, and the system that follows is built to manage what remains. Symptoms are controlled rather than prevented, medications become long-term, and treatment can extend indefinitely.
The IWBCA Upstream Health Initiative™ is designed to change that trajectory. It shifts attention to the point at which risk can still be identified, understood, and reduced through earlier testing, more accurate assessment, and better education. The initiative treats prevention as an active standard of care rather than an afterthought.
Its purpose is straightforward. Identify risk earlier, intervene before disease becomes advanced, and build a model of women’s healthcare that prioritizes protection over lifelong management.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Your Questions, Answered