diff --git a/capnp/includes/capnp_cpp.pxd b/capnp/includes/capnp_cpp.pxd
index ebb81e5..a5bc62c 100644
--- a/capnp/includes/capnp_cpp.pxd
+++ b/capnp/includes/capnp_cpp.pxd
@@ -128,6 +128,7 @@ cdef extern from "capnp/schema.h" namespace " ::capnp":
         cbool isEnum()
         cbool isStruct()
         cbool isInterface()
+        cbool isData()
 
         StructSchema asStruct() except +reraise_kj_exception
         EnumSchema asEnum() except +reraise_kj_exception
@@ -185,7 +186,7 @@ cdef extern from "capnp/schema.h" namespace " ::capnp":
         FieldSubset getUnionFields()
         FieldSubset getNonUnionFields()
 
-        Field getFieldByName(char * name)
+        Field getFieldByName(char * name) except +reraise_kj_exception
 
         cbool operator == (StructSchema)
 
diff --git a/capnp/lib/capnp.pyx b/capnp/lib/capnp.pyx
index fd84deb..d4e6f5c 100644
--- a/capnp/lib/capnp.pyx
+++ b/capnp/lib/capnp.pyx
@@ -1879,9 +1879,8 @@ cdef class _DynamicStructBuilder:
         for key, val in d.iteritems():
             if key != 'which':
                 if isinstance(val, str):
-                    field = self.schema.fields.get(key)
-                    dtype = field.proto.slot.type.which()
-                    if dtype == "data":
+                    key_bytes = key.encode()
+                    if self.thisptr.getSchema().getFieldByName(key_bytes).getType().isData():
                         # decode bytes from utf-8 base64 encoding
                         val = base64.b64decode(val)
                 try: