And unless a medical condition requires an early cesarean, every mother experiences labor.
Labor means work.
It's been compared to pushing a grand piano across a warehouse floor. It is strenuous, exhausting work. And, women will have emotional responses to labor as well. The contractions of labor are the result of the tightening and releasing of the uterus. Effacement is the thinning or shortening of the cervix to prepare it to dilate to let the baby through.