[mod_python] mysql_python connections

I'm creating a python web-app using MySQL and mod_python. I'm running 
into a problem where database connections are staying open even if I 
close them. I'm opening a database connection on each page, but close it 
as soon as I'm done all that I want to do. I was wondering if my 
connection was staying active because of threads.

When I log into my application then log out again there are 3 more MySQL 
processes running when I check "ps -ef | grep mysql " then there were 
before. Does anyone have any good ways to connect to the mysql database 
on a python website, or should I continue to connect on everypage, and 
if so, do I specifically have to make it thread safe (I don't have much 
experience with threads, but I'll do it if that's the problem).

Thanks for the help.

Cheers

Trevor