PHP Connections and httpd child processes

Can anyone tell me if the php3 database connections and includes are considered httpd child processes? Let me explain....I just opened my new personal site(http://www.funhouselotto.com) and am using php3/mysql/apache. Well, yest, according to the stats, we had 10 people on the site playing during the problem hour. I looked in the error log file and saw an entry talking about maxnum being reached. I contacted my support and they said that this was because my server had reached the maximum number of child processes. I asked them to explain how a site that had less than 200 people ALL day and only 10 people that hour, can run out of child processes so quickly. No answer yet. Any tips or things to look at? thanks CDitty