too many clients

After years of running apache-php-postgres with no issues, I'm suddenly
receiving the cannot connect to postgres - too many clients already
error on my script pages.

1. Does everyone ALWAYS have Apache max connections lower than postgres
max clients? I tried this but the problem still returned.

2.I'm using pg_pconnect().

3. Traffic is slightly higher lately but not that high.

4. I'm thinking about apache changing apache maxrequestsperchild from 0
to maybe 10 or something to periodically kill apache children, but I
can't see why the maxclients in apache would overload postgres if they
are both the same number. It is hard fro me to believe there are
actually that many simultaneous users of this system, so for some
reason the connections are remaining open and unused.

Any wisdom out there?

Matt