Pregnancy related deaths is a major problem facing most developing countries especially Nigeria. In fact, Nigeria is reported to be among the worst performing in maternal health globally. The number of women who die during childbirth is alarming and keeps increasing despite advances in health care and technologies. Nigeria accounts for about 34% of global maternal mortality in 2022 with the life time risk of women dying during pregnancy being 1 in 22 people.  The suspected role of child marriage in worsening maternal deaths have continued to generate great concerns among researchers and civil organisations.  The idea of children having children is high risk and over 60 girls are reported to die daily in Nigeria from pregnancy related issues; aggregating to about 22,000 deaths annually. This is a huge burden and must not be ignored. This study therefore seeks to empirically evaluate the effects of early child birth on maternal mortality in Nigeria. This study uses the non-parametric regression model with data drawn from UNICEF Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey to evaluate the effect of early child birth on maternal mortality in Nigeria. The study show that early marriage has a weak positive relationship with maternal mortality rate in Nigeria.  It is therefore recommended that the government should be more prudent in educating young mothers about basic health care during early and late stages of pregnancy. This could be conducted through the sensitization programs across the six geo-political zones of the country.

Key words: Mortality, Children, Marriage, Pregnancy