Supermodel and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss returned to the Miami hospital where she once gave birth on Tuesday afternoon, this time to unveil a maternity center that now carries her name. The Karlie Kloss Center for Maternal Health opened at Jackson Memorial Hospital as a newly renovated space designed to give pregnant patients specialized care as they prepare to deliver.
Kloss donated the funding that made the center possible, according to WSVN, and she attended the center's unveiling in person. She was previously a patient at Jackson Memorial herself. “Every woman deserves to enter motherhood feeling safe, respected, and cared for,” Kloss said at the event, per the station's report.
A Longtime Miami Philanthropist Doubles Down
The new center adds to a pattern of local giving from Kloss, who lives in South Florida with her husband, Joshua Kushner, and gave birth to her third child, a daughter, last September, according to OK Magazine. The couple also has two older sons, Levi and Elijah. Just months before the Jackson Memorial opening, Kloss pledged $1 million to the Lotus Endowment Fund to support the Children's Village at Lotus House, described as the nation's largest shelter for women and children, located in Miami. She joined that shelter's board after volunteering with the organization for more than five years.
Jackson's Public Mission and Existing Track Record
Jackson Memorial operates within Jackson Health System, a safety-net institution founded in 1918 as a single 13-bed hospital that now ranks among the largest public health systems in the country. The system relies on a mix of county sales tax revenue, patient care fees, and philanthropic donations funneled through the Jackson Health Foundation to serve Miami-Dade County residents regardless of ability to pay.
The Women's Hospital at Jackson Memorial already holds the Baby-Friendly designation from the World Health Organization and UNICEF, a recognition given to birthing centers that keep mothers and newborns roomed together and provide dedicated lactation support. Jackson was also named to Sunshine Health's Healthy Birth Outcomes Honor Roll in 2026 for keeping low-risk, first-time cesarean birth rates at or below the federal Healthy People 2030 benchmark of 23.6%. The hospital additionally runs the state-funded RHISE program, which provides free medical transportation for pregnant women with high-risk pregnancies in Miami-Dade County, addressing a transit barrier that can keep low-income patients from making it to prenatal and postpartum appointments.
A Backdrop of Persistent Maternal Health Disparities
The center's opening arrives as Florida continues to post troubling maternal and infant health numbers. The state recorded a preterm birth rate of 10.7 percent in 2024, or 23,803 infants, earning a D+ grade from the March of Dimes, while Miami-Dade County's preterm birth rate of 9.8 percent climbed sharply to 15.4 percent among Black infants. Nationally, the CDC reported the U.S. maternal mortality rate stood at 17.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024, with Black women facing a rate of 44.8 deaths per 100,000 live births compared to 14.2 for White non-Hispanic women.
Jackson's investment also follows a broader regional trend of South Florida hospital systems pouring money into maternity care upgrades. In neighboring Broward County, Memorial Healthcare System spent $68 million in 2025 to redesign and expand the Memorial Family Birthplace at Memorial Regional Hospital, adding 41 private postpartum rooms with direct connections to Level IV neonatal intensive care. Jackson Memorial itself previously invested $6 million in 2014 to create 20 private Little Miracles Maternity Suites and upgrade the neonatal intensive care unit at Holtz Children's Hospital, a renovation that was the facility's first major structural overhaul in more than 40 years.
It remains unclear exactly how much Kloss donated toward the new center or precisely how the renovated space will expand capacity or specialized programming for low-income and high-risk expectant mothers across Miami-Dade County. For now, the center stands as the latest example of Kloss channeling her philanthropy toward the community where she became a mother herself.
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