Jaguars Defensive Lineman Dawuane Smoot Delivers Baby Daughter in His Living Room
He really came through in the clutch
Jaguars defensive lineman Dawuane Smoot should be glad this is Jacksonville’s bye week. Smoot’s wife gave birth to the couple’s second child on Tuesday—and her husband delivered the baby.
Smoot, a fifth-year defensive end who has started three games for the Jags this year, had two tackles in Sunday’s win over the Dolphins in London on Sunday. He got back to Jacksonville just in time to take his wife, Aumari, to the hospital. Only they never made it to the hospital.
At 4 a.m. on Tuesday, as they were heading out the door, Aumari fell to her knees and Dawuane caught her, the team said. He then delivered the baby right there in the family’s living room.
Paramedics talked Smoot through how to tie the umbilical cord and now mom, dad and baby Ahlani Moon Smoot are said to be doing well.
“For the past 9 months my wife and I both dreamt of having our second child and first daughter but nothing could have prepared us for this,” Smoot wrote on Instagram. “Seeing you collapse on the floor while walking out the door to the hospital was the scariest moment of my life. But seeing your strength to stay calm and not panic allowed me to realize everything was going to be okay. God had our back.”
Smoot isn’t the first athlete pressed into action as an impromptu midwife, either. In 2015, NBA player Iman Shumpert delivered his first child with singer Teyana Taylor in the couple’s bathroom after she unexpectedly went into labor. In 2016, Taylor and Shumpert got married right next to that very bathroom. (“Pretty much, we got married at the crime scene,” Shumpert told GQ.) Last year, Taylor gave birth to their second child in the bathroom of their new home—only this time it was by design. Maybe Dawuane and Aumari can opt for a pre-planned living room birth if they have a third child.
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