The Larry C. Shehadey Clock Tower at the Save Mart Center, the Lighthouse for Children and City Hall were lit purple Monday evening until dawn on Wednesday to commemorate the Purple Light Walk that took place on Tuesday evening.

The Fresno City Council proclaimed November as World Prematurity Month, and the Fresno County Board of Supervisors proclaimed Nov. 17 as World Prematurity Day. ­

The Purple Light Walk started at the Lighthouse for Children on Van Ness Avenue and the event attendees walked the few blocks down to City Hall on P Street.

“World Prematurity Day is a day where we are bringing awareness to premature birth around the world,” First 5 Fresno County Executive Director Emilia Reyes said. ­

Reyes said that purple is the symbol of prematurity and the efforts going on globally, and the lit up buildings represent the significance of the day.

Reyes said that Fresno State is a lead agency on the Fresno preterm birth initiative to look into the reason why Fresno County has such a high premature birth rate.

Gail Newel, M.D., is a faculty member at UCSF Fresno campus and is part of the collective effort that has come together for the preterm birth initiative.

Newel said the state average for premature birth rates is about 9 percent, and Fresno County’s average is higher than 10 percent.

“Some of our populations here ”” like our African-American population ”” have preterm birth rates twice the general population rate,” Newel said. “That’s really unacceptable.”

Newel said that the initiative will hopefully find some answers as to what causes preterm labor, so that that then ways to help prevent preterm labor can be found.

Reyes there are many health consequences that go along with premature birth.

“It is very important to bring the awareness around ensuring that we support our mothers to have full term births,” Reyes said.

Neal and Andrea Powell were at the Purple Light Walk with their daughter Ava. ­Andrea said that she is part of the preterm birth initiative due to her experience with giving birth to Ava at 23 weeks and 6 days.

Andrea said that that amount of time is less than what is considered viable for a fetus, and Ava suffered from brain bleeds and meningitis.

Andrea said that prematurity awareness is hugely important to the community and had been very important and insightful to her as a mother.

“It really gets out information and resources to people who may not have any idea that pre-term birth is a thing,” Andrea said. ­“Beyond that, it’s really nice to introduce the idea to corporations and educational places that don’t realize the impact of preterm birth on the community and bring them into the involvement of the initiative and the collective impact.”

Almost two years later, Andrea said that Ava is doing great.

Newel said she loved the lit up buildings all of the purple decorations, including the purple lanterns that were used for the walk.

“That shows a real commitment on the part of both the city and the county to address this issue,” Newel said. ­“It’s exciting to know that we have the political will in Fresno County to start working on this issue.”