Maternal death during pregnancy, labour and puerperium constitutes the main problem of prenatal medicine and still a major public health topic. In this work we analyses maternal deaths in Poland between 1991-2000. There were 4,404,641 live births and 462 maternal deaths. Among them there were 402 direct ("true") maternal deaths with mortality rate 9.1 per 100,000 live births and 60 indirect maternal deaths (rate 1.4). There were 218 cases of pregnancy associated deaths (rate 4.9). The main causes of direct maternal deaths were as follows: haemorrhage--33.6% (rate 3.1), sepsis--27.3% (rate 2.5), amniotic fluid embolism--22.4% (rate 2.0) and pregnancy induced hypertension 16.7% (rate 1.5). Increasing maternal age is one of important risk factor for mortality. Over 30% of direct pregnancy related deaths were noted within women above 35 years. Unsatisfactory antenatal care, management deficiency and patient's neglect were main risk factor foe fatal outcome. Practical conclusions should be issued as general rules, instructions and recommendations. Between one third to one half of the maternal deaths are considered to have been preventable.