Abstract A maternal near miss (MNM) is an event in which a pregnant woman comes close to maternal death, but does not die – a “near-miss”. Traditionally, the analysis of maternal deaths has been the criteria of choice for evaluating women’s health and the quality of obstetric care. Due to the success of modern medicine such deaths have become very rare in developed countries, which has led to an increased interest in analyzing so-called “near miss” events.