About a month before a woman is due to deliver her baby, the baby turns in the uterus so its head is down and the baby "drops" down so it's head rests between the mother's pelvic bones. The pregnant woman suddenly has more room to breathe (before that the baby interfered with the diaphragm and made breathing difficult so the mom got short of breath when walking or climbing stairs). However, the woman can then have more urinary urgency because the baby is pressing more on the woman's bladder.
About the same time that the baby drops in the uterus, the mom can also experience Braxton-Hicks contractions. These occur because of changes in the levels of pregnancy hormones. The contractions are like "test" contractions and often occur when the mom is active-- like cleaning the house, doing the laundry, etc. But these test contractions are false labor. They are not strong enough or long enough or sustained enough to push out a baby.
When real contractions begin, the muscle contractions become regular, longer, and repeated. When contractions are two minutes apart, the baby could come anytime between 1 hour to 24 hours from then (depends if she had a baby before or if it is her first baby). Most moms go through labor for a lengthy period of time---many hours.
Finally, the baby is born!
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