Abstract
Objective: To analyze the main causes of maternal mortality among women in Brazil. Methods: This is a descriptive, exploratory and qualitative research, which will follow as a theoretical basis, periodicals of virtual repositories. The complete articles used in this work will be in Portuguese, English and made available free of charge through digital means, published in the last decade. Results: The articles that served as a basis for discussion of the results according to the objectives of the work, demonstrated that in Brazil 80% of maternal deaths are due to direct obstetric causes, and, on the other hand, 20% are responsible for indirect obstetric causes. In the Brazilian context, hypertensive causes are at the top of the list, followed by hemorrhagic and infections. Maternal death has become one of the great public health challenges in Brazil. Final considerations: To reduce the rate of maternal death in the hospital environment, some behaviors are necessary, the role of the obstetric nursing professional in the prevention of maternal mortality and the improvement in the early diagnosis in the treatment related to the puerperal gravidic period.