The nineteen-day fast in March precedes the Bahá'í new year at the spring equinox: no food or drink from sunrise to sunset, with exemptions for the ill, travelers, the pregnant, the nursing, the young, and the elderly. It closes the Bahá'í year, and its stated purpose is detachment and reorientation rather than penance. The nineteens throughout the calendar derive from the Báb's system, in which the number is significant.