This research examines women's knowledge in the realm of childbirth as a means for interrogating ways women may assert authority within institutional structures of power. The goal of this study was to examine the role of doulas, labor support women, in institutional childbirth; specifically with an interest in the educative role enacted within doula and client interactions. Thus the target of my empirical research is examining the following questions: (1) How do doulas promote alternative interactions in the birth experience; (2) What role do doulas play in the experience; (3) What role do doulas play as educators? The research questions focus upon a process that can only be understood through a qualitative inquiry, requiring an examination that includes both doulas and birthing women to investigate the relationship that exists in the birthing process. Methodologically this approach is reflected in my decision to use critical ethnographic methods. The findings from this study demonstrate how the doula locates authoritative knowledge of the childbirth process as internal to the birthing woman, as opposed to locating authority in external medical sources of knowledge. Doulas locate both knowledge and authority in the woman's body creating a site for subsequent resistance of the medical childbirth model.