CHICAGO — Fever phobia is rampant among parents of young children, according to a myth-busting American Academy of Pediatrics report that advises against treatment every time a kid’s temperature inches up.

“There’s a lot of parental anxiety about fever. It’s one of the most common reasons people bring their child to the doctor,” said Dr. Henry Farrar, co-author of the report and an emergency room pediatrician at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

Most often, kids’ fevers are caused by viruses and they will go away without medicine and without causing any damage.

Parents tend to overtreat fevers, even waking up sleeping kids to give them fever-reducing medicine, Farrar said.

“If they’re sleeping, let them sleep,” he said.

There is no hard proof that untreated fevers lead to seizures or brain damage; there’s also no evidence that lowering fevers reduces illness, according to the report which focused on children older than 3 months.

Temperatures lower than 100.4 degrees are not considered a fever. There’s no harm in treating a true fever with over-the-counter acetaminophen or ibuprofen. And it makes sense to do so when the child is obviously feeling ill. But the No. 1 reason to use fever-reducing medicine is to make a sick child feel more comfortable, the authors said.

The report was released online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

It emphasizes that a fever is not an illness but rather a mechanism that helps fight infection. Fevers can slow the growth of viruses and bacteria, and enhance production of important immune-system cells.

The report doesn’t recommend any temperature cutoffs for when to treat or call the doctor.

Many physicians recommend calling the doctor if a child’s temperature hits 104 or 105 degrees, but Farrar said it’s just as important to assess the child’s behavior.

“What we’re trying to do is get people to look at the whole picture.”