escaping the '

I am running Postgres 6.3.2 / PHP 3.0 on Linux 2.0.30.

I have a table that has 16 text fields in it. I have a PHP form that allows a
user to enter info into that field. When a user enters an ' as in " item's " the
query will fail. I have played around with it and can execute the query without
error if I escape the ' . Such as " item\'s "

Here's the big question:

Is there anyway other than doing a ereg_replace(); in PHP to get around this
problem? If I do a ereg_replace("'", "\'", $f1) in the PHP file and execute it,
I have no problem. I dont recall having this problem in the earlier version of
Postgres.

As always, thanks in advance!

Andy